Generally I would not join in on a hiking, rock climbing adventure with people I didn't know well into the woods of Southern France so near to nightfall, but this time was worth it. **Just click on the images to see them in full. Enjoy.

The original trip began when three other students joined me after dinner to see how I had made it to a road leading to another road which led to Bonnieux from the cherry tree groves behind Maisson Basse of lower Lacoste. I had actually gone alone the evening before because the other students who wanted to join were busy with other things. It was alright, though; making enough noise while walking in the woods is a smart move for keeping wild boar away. On that note, according to a professor here, there are asps in Southern France, and these are deadly poisonous snakes. Cleopatra was supposedly killed by one.

Anyway, we four made it to the end of the country road that led through the fields and woods behind Maisson Basse, and we took a right onto the road that led to Lacoste. Below is one of the views we saw along the way to Lacoste itself.

Once we were at the road to Maison Basse, we decided to just walk on to Lacoste and up to the chateau de Sade in order to get a nice view of the village during sundown.

   

These are a couple of views along the way up through this village and nearing the top of the mountain.

And this is a view of a part of the chateau top during sundown. That statue is an abstracted one of Marquis de Sade. I haven't figured out yet who created the sculpture. Nevertheless, from the top, the group broke up and I joined some other students to hike and explore beyond the top of the chateau.

We found one of many great big rocks to climb, and from the first rock, I managed to capture this moment of sunset over the mountains and trees. Luckily the clouds were also working with us in this experience.

Below, you'll see the view from one of the other rocks on which we climbed. There's a bird's eye view from it looking down at some of my fellow students--Juan, Molly, and Stephanie.

Here, the students were taking turns going to an edge of the rock which protruded over an impressive height. First was Pedro. Then Grant. Then Connor. Then Emalee. Then Molly. You'll see they're all having a laugh about the frightening ordeal.

    

This photograph of Emalee, below, is one of my favorites. This was the perfect moment for a photograph.

Right, that's it! From there, we just hiked back and played music in Maisson Forte, mostly listening to Matt Yocum perform personal compositions and memorised classics. For a video and photograph on that, see the previous post.

Next time I'll write about the World Cup, and yes, unfortunately, America losing.