A Change Of Plans

We’ve had problems with collecting trash this week because of some problems and bad luck. This week started with Vattie stepping on something sharp and having a small cut under her paw. Because of this we had to stay a little while longer on a camping while it was healing. At the same time we’ve had big problems with deliveries here in France because of their postal services. We waited for Vatties food and a cooling harness to help her during the hot days of hiking. Somehow the food that were supposed to be delivered in 2 days took them 12 days to deliver and the cooling harness somehow disappeared after crossing the French border. This is the second time we’ve had a similar problem when ordering in France. The good thing is that we have good contact with our sponsors from Brit, Hurtta and Sveland in Sweden, we’ve also gained good contact with Brit Pet Food in Belgium who is the ones that deliver the food in France. After talking with our sponsors about these problems we’ve figured that staying at one place for a longer time would be necessary if we want the cooling harness and that’s when we found “Workaway”.

Workaway is a website like couchsurfing but for workers and hosts that need help, the hosts explain what kind of help they want and then a worker can describe what they know and can help with. So in about two weeks we will have our first workaway experience. During the month we will stay there we will continue our project by doing daily hikes around the area. Until then we will walk in a slower pace and explore the area of “Des Causses Du Quercy”, a natural regional park with a lot of amazing nature.

These problems have led to new opportunities and more experience. We’ve had to hitchhike some days and we’ve had the luxury of sightseeing with our drivers. For example we got to see a famous Viaduct where it is common to do bungee jumping at the “Viaduc De Recoumene”. We also got to see a beautiful lake in Coucourone.

Not only we had some new experiences but also Vattie, because maybe you can’t hike with a healing paw but riding a canoe is no problem at all. She rather sit in the front though to see where we were going and also to check for fishes.

When it comes to dogs in France we’ve noticed big differences between how you treat dogs here and in the other countries we’ve been in. First of all it’s more common with street dogs and dogs running loose even though they have owners nearby. Owners who actually train their dogs seems to be using much more brute force and aggressive measures to teach their dogs something, which often leaves the dogs very confused and not understanding a thing. For us it’s hard to know how to react because we are a couple from Sweden not knowing their language or the standards here in France. Maybe we’ve been unfortunate and just seen the ones who’ve been mean towards their dogs or maybe this is more normal than we realized from the beginning. Most people seem to be amazed by Vatties behavior and they really think she is adorable.

Right now we are in Cahors, a small medieval town with beautiful structures and architecture from times past. It’s not far from Toulouse and to go here we had to go through Toulouse and stay at a camping there for a night. Most people have heard of Toulouse and it’s a big famous city where tourists go to shop but we never went that far into Toulouse to see the beautiful parts and the parts we did see was not inviting. It was very dirty and a lot of littering on the streets, we had to search for a while to find a public trash can. On our way to the camping site we also went past the first refugee camp we’ve seen so far on this trip. Unfortunately they’ve not had the possibility to live a comfortable life there and without toilets they’ve had to use the bushes in the park and it was not a pleasant walk, a lot of unnecessary littering. We hope they soon find a better way of living.

See you next week!