Alors! I made it to France! The direct flight from Boston was quick and painless. Camille graciously picked me up from the airport in Paris and we made the 7 hour drive back to her home in the department of Lot.
I've already done a lot here in the first week. I've met all of her roommates and they're all wonderful people and more than willing to speak English with me despite having to deal with English all day at work. At the same time I think my French is progressing much faster, now that I'm surrounded by it at all times.
Camille lives and works in the countryside. The nearest real city is about an hour away. During the summer months there are many markets to be found in the various villages nearby throughout the week. So of course one of the first things we did was stock up on bread and cheese. Mon Dieu, the cheese here is so good and so much cheaper than what can be found in the states.
We also did a little hiking and climbing early on. About 20 minutes away is the town of Autoire which has a beautiful waterfall as well as lots of climbing.
Here's the view while hiking to the climbing area.
The climbing is on beautiful limestone cliffs full of tufas. The climbing is very physical and technical. It makes me happy!
Camille's roommate Matthieu is very strong. Here he is working his way through a 7c+ (5.13a).
Then I visited Camille's work, Le Gouffre de Padirac. It's an enormous chasm located nearby. They offer guided tours of the chasm (including a boat ride down the river which carves its way through the chasm) as well as other outdoor activities above ground. Here's Camille working in the geology workshop where she's giving a presentation on the various famous caves from around the world. She also educates visitors on the processes involved in the creation of the chasm as well as the various types of rocks found on Earth.
And here is the giant hole in the ground! It's too large to capture all in one photograph. The entrance is 35 meters wide and descends 75 meters into the earth.
Camille hooked me up with a free tour so I could see the chasm and see what her job was like on days when she was assigned to paddling the boats.
The cave system contains more then 40km of galleries but only about 2km is open to the public. The experience begins with a self-guided, walking audio tour.
Then you reach an area where a boat is necessary to continue further. This is where Camille often works, paddling boats back and forth on the river. The boats fit up to 10 people and she must navigate the narrow river while avoiding the walls and other boats as well as educating visitors on the chasm in as many as 4 different languages! And they must stick to a strict 8 minute schedule... It's a lot of work!
Reasonably so, photographs are not allowed during the boat section of the tour. But eventually you reach another section where you're allowed to walk around on your own. There you are greeted with beautiful pools, incredible features and a massive room referred to as la Salle du Grand Dôme.
This unique feature is called the pile of plates.
This is the Grand Dome. I tried to capture its enormity, but it's impossible. If you look at the bottom of the image you can see tiny tourists to gain a slight perspective.
So the chasm was awesome.
I was also here for France's independence day on July 14th. Several villages has fireworks that night but we were too tired and lazy to go see them. Autoire will be having fireworks this weekend so maybe we will go see those.
And I was also in France to watch them win the World Cup. Pretty cool. We went to the bar near the chasm to watch the game. It was almost entire employees from the chasm which was nice because I was able to meet many of them.
And now I will continue to go climbing, eat lots of cheese and explore the region!
À plus !
