Percé to Gaspe, QC
Traditional territory of the Mi’kmaq
89 km
Cloud, bits of sun and hints of coastline wind, 17 ÂşC
It is just past 9 PM and I am toast. One of the main differences between this tour and past tours is that the work spills past sunset. All the days are full and even when it rains, it feels like a blessing. None of them feel heavy.
We were driven off our campsite/backyard by an angry Quebecois who threatened to call the cops on us (pas de problem) and very s-l-o-w-l-y climbed the toughest hill we’ve encountered on the mainland. All before breakfast! More on this on our podcast soon.
Jacques met us at our picnic table and we talked for a while about his own solo cycle touring experiences. He seemed lovely.
While I don’t feel tired, I feel sleepy all too often lately and it isn’t because of a caffeine addiction but to combat this I am developing a caffeine addiction. Yay!
The café I stopped at was a beautiful one called Café Couleur and I cannot wait to revisit it. I wrote a poem featuring some other images about it.
Jonathon zipped past me while I had my cup of coffee and while trying to catch up at an art studio where he was waiting, I stopped to talk to this couple, Patrick and Christine, mostly because I thought they were looking at whales. They taught me some new French words (all good words, not swear words, I swear) and when they began to write their email (courriel electronique) in my tiny journal, a gust of wind blew by and tossed several of my scrapbooks materials to the beach. We rescued most of them and they recomposed themselves for this image.
Jonathon found the most incredible spot and he’ll have a longer write-up about it so I won’t mention too much about Gerard et Margot. Just that they seemed like an incredibly content and magical duo.
Seriously.
One of the trademark visuals of Quebec for me is the very distinctive churches all the small towns seem to have. This is an unusual one but something about the green carpet and the steps and the decor gripped me visually. I find myself thinking about religion and God, not just because it is Ramadan and I am for the second time in my life not fasting (both times while cycling across Canada), and how impossible it feels most of the time to not believe that there isn’t a grand architect shepherding us or something. More on this at the end of the month.
My dear friend Alex Neumann met someone on couchsurfing, Agnieszka, and made her promise to find me somewhere in Canada as I biked across it and she hitchhiked around it. We shared a marvellous time at the Café des Artistes in Gaspé. She’ll be featured on our Podcast No. 2, stay tuned to this frequency or our newsletter frequency.
Doru et Gabrielle, two cool looking hitchhikers who were walking in as we were walking out. Doru has a Romanian background which was a good opportunity to brush up on my Romanian. Who would’ve thought I’d be practicing my Romanian in Quebec? Not me!
It was a hilly day and I couldn’t help but pause to appreciate Yvon’s process of lawn mowing avec (read: with) the strings. He told me after that it was because of a motorbike accident, tapping his leg and generating a wooden noise.
Still, it is tempting to add motors to our bicycles. Perpetually.
Writing from the land of no cellphone reception, hope this missive makes it out to you and the deers don’t eat us. We have been called endearing a few times now.