Well, I am a menteur. I had said that I was not going to work any longer over my last days but come Saturday morning I started working on the chapter about Southern California Water Supply and stuck to it until I finished it by mid-afternoon. Since I was at home, I heard my wonderful landlady, Françoise, come to clean the pigeon poop from my front terrace. We engaged in a nice conversation and she asked me if I had been to Issigeac. No, I hadn’t. “Oh, but you must go there. It is a charmant old town, and tomorrow Sunday they will have the market. You should bring your swimming suit and go into the stream.” Little did I know that Le Diable had possessed the kind lady to throw me once again into the path of torture and agony.
Sunday morning I took my time to breakfast and get ready to go. Google Maps told me that it was a one hour and fifteen minutes ride, so I felt I could delay my departure until 9 am, so I could get there on time to see the market started. It was a fine day and, as always, I scoffed at the idea of consulting La Météo. To me they are nothing but wild guesses. Well, now I regret it, because today Sunday was predicted to be very hot, with top temperatures of 38° C or 100° F.
In happy ignorance I started biking. I was heading south, crossing La Dordogne, and going over the hills to Issigeac. Mind you, these are not huge hills, but they extend for hundreds of kilometers, in an eternal up and down. Me, I am great at going down, but am not so great at going up. In fact, I much prefer walking the upslopes. The hills are covered by acres and acres of sunflowers, which makes them beautiful, and by acres and acres of vineyards. Unfortunately, there is not a lot of shade between fields, so pretty soon I started feeling the heat. Fortunately for me there was a breeze, so by rushing from shade to shade I was able to cool down somehow by evaporation. Still, after a while I started feeling the symptoms of heat exhaustion, so my rests became longer and longer, at the same time the sunflowers were turning to catch the piercing rays of a sun that was getting higher and higher over the horizon. One hour followed another, and what was supposed to be a ride of little more than an hour lasted at least three before I reached my destination close to noon time.
Issigeac is indeed a charming medieval town, not much bigger than a post stamp. The market was in plain ebullition, but there was not a store open where I could buy a bottle of water. Lots of great looking cheeses, saucissons, tourons, and kitschy embroideries, but no water! I started to panic and had the notion that I could take the bus back to Bergerac (no good that idea, because during Les Estivals there is only one run per day at 10 am). Well, I had to use the little water and energy I had left and get back home before passing out. So I turned back, and this time using the highway, made a beeline for Bergerac. It was torture, and once again I was forced to stop often (always in the shade), soldier up walking the uphills under the blazing sun, barely kissing my depleted water bottle. I even stooped so low as to “milk” a couple of ounces from the water bottle left behind by a construction worker!
Finally, about 10 km from Bergerac, I came to the wine-producing region of Monbazillac (a part of the DAC of Bergerac), where in a small winery I found an outside faucet and was able to guzzle several liters of water. I also took a long siesta under the shady awning, which must have drawn some sneer comments from the owners of the chateau, and thus refreshed I managed to cover the last stretch back home. It was hot! Really, really hot!
But I made it home
and there, waiting for me like a source of life, was my fourth and last bottle
of Giulia beer. Never has a cold beer tasted so good!
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