Russ
Sept. 15 - We arrived safely in SJPDP this afternoon. This is the main starting point for the Camino Frances. The train from Paris to Bayonne in the south of France was a high speed electric train - we left at the minute it was scheduled and we arrived a bit early. The French train system is very good. Our passage to SJPDP from Bayonne was in a smaller and slower diesel train. We met a nice couple from New Zealand that we talked with during the shorter second train journey.
Our first glimpse of SJPDP was like seeing a Swiss village. We no sooner arrived at the albergue when a great procession of costumed musicians and dancers paraded up the street. Evidently it is a once a year celebration of the designation of the Camino Frances as a World Heritage Site.
We met several people at our albergue (like a hostel - bunk beds in dorm rooms with shared washroom facilities). We had a welcoming apertif and introduced ourselves before the dinner. Two other Canadians including one from Nanaimo were in the group.
We had a nice evening sharing stories about what led us to the Camino. Lights out at 10 and an exciting first day of walking to look forward to.
Sept 16 -
By the way, since we don't have regular Internet access we will post our blog updates when we can. Also, we will be checking emails from time to time so you should be able to reach us by the usual email addresses if you like.
After a good breakfast Linda and I left and took our first true pilgrim steps. We are now at today's destination, Orisson, eight kilometers straight up the Pyrenees mountains. Our training has paid off handsomely. We had no trouble and found our pace was faster than most other pilgrims. Forget about looking up Orisson on a map - it's nothing more than an albergue, still on the French side of the Pyrenees.
So, we're sitting at a table shortly after arriving at Orisson and talking with that NewZealand couple we met yesterday and a big bang goes off. A huge boar goes racing up the slope right beside the albergue with two hunters and a bunch of dogs giving chase. They were not successful. I would guess the boar stood about three feet at the shoulder and at least 200 lbs. A little excitement for our morning.
Today's walk only took us two hours so we were feeling like we could go on farther. However, since we had already booked this place we are staying here tonight. It will make tomorrow's walk to Roncesvalles that much easier.
The scenery on this morning's walk was spectacular and the weather perfect. A morning fog when we started off and we quickly walked above it. The pictures we took show a beautiful fog in the low lying areas.
We are so happy to be on our journey at last and are feeling very blessed.
We had quite a bit of leisure time before dinner and we got to know a couple of fellow pilgrims a bit better - Caroline from Quebec city and Brenda from South Africa. We spent a very funny and enjoyable hour helping a woman from Colorado get rid of about 10 lbs of the 27 lb pack she had carried up the mountain that morning. Great fun - we are of course experts now on the strength of the last day of Camino walking. A young man from Chicago also entertained us with his guitar and we sang a bunch of John Denver and James Taylor songs ( yes, I did sing along albeit quietly). All in all the afternoon was quite wonderful.
The Orrison dinner was superior to the previous night's. We retired shortly after nine.
Sept 17 -
We set out for Roncesvalles this morning at 7:30, just light enough to see our path. As we climbed, the most beautiful sunrise greeted us. I hope we can post a picture. Our weather today has again been perfect - mainly sunny but not too hot. We could easily have had poor weather going over the pass (it's called the Route Napoleon because Napoleon used it in his conquest of the Iberian Penninsula). At this time of year we could easily have had stormy weather and been forced to go back to SJPDP and on to Roncesvalles through a lower pass, along a busy highway. Today we made good time also and reached Roncesvalles at 12:30. The last part was steeply downhill and that was NOT FUN. We both found the downhill walk very hard on the knees. Give me a hill to climb any day rather than downhill.
Because we'd made good time and were feeling still fresh we decided not to stay at Roncesvalles and walk on another 3 1/2 km, making the total day's walk about 20 km. we are staying in a modest but clean pension (also known as a casa rural) and will go down to the church tonight for the pilgrim meal. By carrying on past Roncesvalles we will miss reuniting with our new friends, which we regret. However, we do travel quite a bit faster than they do so it was inevitable we would leave them behind at some point. We hadn't foreseen this and we had not yet exchanged contact information with them. We will miss them if we don't see them again.
Russ
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