20 years ago today – Day 75

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Friday, May 17 – Nantua to Roche-sur-Foron, 3649 km

My system is now empty and well rested. I wake with plenty of energy, for a day that will be ironically three-quarters as long and less hilly than yesterday. But I am happy that I have the energy today because we are headed into the Haute Savoie, the French region south of Geneva, Switzerland, where we will meet our next hosts from our Gai Pied ad in Roche-sur-Foron.

Because it will be a shorter, easier day and I am up early, I choose this time to write to David, my business partner in Toronto, who has taken $4000 from my savings in the past 3 months under false pretenses. He is a untrustworthy bastard who believes in being moral and fair unless that interferes with something he wants. I have to be extremely clear and forceful with him, because he’s a real prima donna who believes he should be allowed to get anything he wants.

First, I express my anger over what he has done, lying to me to have me pay off his loan to me early, against what he agreed to initially, and intimidating my elderly mother into giving him another chunk of my savings under the false pretense that there was a financial crisis concerning the house, which there was not. I tell him that he has made it financially impossible for me to finish my trip, that I am prepared to return immediately and spend the remainder of my savings suing him for breaking our legal agreement, that I would not be making any further payments on the mortgage and will force us to sell the house in repayment for his dishonesty and for ruining my trip of a lifetime. In short, I will spend everything I have to nail his balls to the wall – unless he returns the money he intimidated my mother into giving him immediately at his own expense immediately. I would give him two weeks to do this or I will buy a ticket home and make his life a living hell. Wow, that feels good. This has been long overdue.

It takes an hour to write the letter, and twenty minutes more to stop at the post office in Nantua to send it registered mail. With that behind me for now, Mike and I set out to Roche-sur-Foron where our host Gerard Ravel is waiting for us. Mike reached him by phone last night and he has agreed to put us up for the weekend.

The road climbs out of Nantua gradually for 2 km. Then, to my surprise it drops gradually but for a long way, and today we have a tailwind helping us so we make excellent time. It is cold and showery for part of the day. Since we have plenty of time, we stop for a coffee at Bellegarde-sur-Valserin, which is on the headwaters of the Rhone River.

From here we follow the Rhone a while and then climb up to another small col. Part way up we stop for lunch, though I am being careful by eating only juice and bread. We continue through the pass into another valley and follow a picturesque side road through Swiss-like hill farms to Roche-sur-Foron. It is 5:20pm when we arrive. It is a pleasant-looking town, in a rolling broad valley, but nothing too spectacular. I guess I have been hoping for something more mountainous.

It is not a large so it is easy to find our host Gerard’s home, opposite the Hotel Beauregard on the outskirts of town. I am not sure what to make of him at first. He is a year older than me and a bit dowdy. He is very quiet with no gay affectations. He invites us into his kitchen where he is working on something small he has dismantled. The parts are scattered over the surface of the table. I find it weird and perhaps rude that he just ignores us and keeps on working. I think that perhaps we have made a mistake in accepting his offer to host us until I realize he is repairing a heater we will need in our guest room. I suppose he explained this to Mike in his soft-spoken, rapid French, but Mike doesn’t care to translate today.

When the heater is back together, Gerard leads us to our room in a detached cabin very close to his house. Mike and I wash up. He takes a stroll around the neighbourhood and I fill up on snacks in my bags, since it is after 7 and Gerard hasn’t even begun to prepare dinner.

Around 8, another two men arrive a few minutes apart. One is introduced as Thierry and the other is Christian. It takes me a couple more hours to figure out that Thierry is Gerard’s boyfriend and he lives between Grenoble and Lyons, three hours drive away. He works in a store which is closed this long weekend. Christian, like Gerard, works as an electrician for the SNCF, but neither are anything like the horrid SNCF baggage agents in Avignon. He lives north-west of here in a small town called Migennes.

The three of them prepare a relaxed, French-styled meal spread out in different courses over a couple hours, with aperitifs and digestives on either end and wine in between. They seem totally comfortable with our presence but they talk very rapidly. I can scarcely make out any words. Mike listens to them with full concentration, rolling his eyes thoughtfully from time to time. I am not sure how much he is getting but he shares none of it with me until I question him when we are alone later. I feel very excluded from their conversation, as they make no attempt to include me. Gerard has a very large poster of the movie “Cocktail” on his living room wall, with Tom Cruise at his sexy best keeping eye contact with me all evening. I occupy my time fantasizing about him cruising me.


PHOTO 1: autoroute bridge east of Nantua
PHOTO 2: Bellegarde-sur-Valserine
PHOTO 3: approaching Roche-sur-Foron
PHOTO 4: Valley of the Foron, looking at Alps
PHOTO 5: telephoto shot of the Alps
PHOTO 6: houses in Roche-sur-Foron