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Friday, Oct 5th, 2007
I just realized that my stage numbering for the blog entries has been one off from the numbering on the website since Chamonix. Oops. I'll try to remain consistent from now on.
So, I felt better than the last couple of days, it didn't rain, and the hike was "only" 6.5 hours. Jackpot!
Little or no connectivity here, or yesterday in Bezaudun, so you might not see this post, or the previous one, for a day or two. This is wild country: deep-cut valleys, towering cliffs and mountains (over 1000m difference at times between the tops of the mountains and the rivers between them), just the occasional road and village, and nigh on nobody on the trails.
The first day out of Monaco we saw two hikers, the next day one, and today none at all. It perhaps plays something of a role that we have spent much of the last couple of days on secondary, i.e., non-GR (Grande Randonnee) trails, but I suspect that we wouldn't have seen many more on the GRs: this is France's empty quarter.
Aiglun is another of these tiny medieval perched villages, and is among the most isolated that we have seen on the whole trip. We were apparently fortunate to find accommodations here: the only place to stay reopened under new ownership (after a prolonged hiatus) just yesterday. On the positive side, I assume that this means that the ingredients used to cook dinner will be fresh :-).
There is little or no farming here -- the terrain is just too rugged for that -- and neither is there much animal husbandry it seems, probably due to the perennial lack of water. Basically the local economic activities seem to be forestry and a little tourism. So it is perhaps not surprising that it is so thinly settled.
We have two more days of this country until we get to Castellane: I'll bet we won't see a single other hiker on the trails.
