September 3rd St Jean Pied du Port to Roncesvalles

Day 1 St. Jean Port du Pied to Roncesvalles

Wow!  What a gorgeous day. What an experience.   Breakfast at the hostel was at 6am and when we finally made it out to the table it was clear that a huge majority of pilgrims had already come through.  A whole group was getting up to start hiking as I was sitting down.  After a heartfelt "Buen Camino," I watched them walk past the window and off down the street even though the sun was only just beginning to lighten the sky.  I can understand  their anxiety, the hike today is considered one of the most arduous.  15.6 miles up and over the Pyrenees.  And the first 5 miles are STEEP!  After our instant coffee (in a HUGE bowl), multitudes of toast with butter,our supplemental banana  and delightful conversation we were ready to head out the door.   We passed right under the church bell as is was chiming 8am. 
It was a festive start.  Everyone, excited to be starting the Camino, waved hello to those that passed, slowed down to chat with others, took pictures at every turn and was generally in great spirits.  While the positivity continued all day the over-the-top enthusiasm dwindled as we started up the hills.  And up and up and up.   The first miles were all on road way. In fact, most of the day was on the road.  We walked UP for 7 hours.  But oh, was it beautiful. The views of the Pyrenees were stunning.  The mountainsides were green and well manicured with sheep grazing all around.  All day long the tinkling of the animals bells followed us.  At one point we saw some horses out grazing and to shannon's delight we got to watch a sheepdog do her thing. She had those sheep in a perfect rectangle!  Meanwhile, you could see the mountains stretch out behind them and the villages down in the valley.  Picture-eqsue. 
However, it was sunny.  No treecover until we got into Spain and the sun was relentless.   With the constant breeze you didn't really notice the heat,but when we stopped for lunch it was clear that we had started to get burnt.   I (shannon) was SO happy to have the hats-I'm so glad Jamie was dedicated to those purchases. 

By the time we got into the beech forests of Spain, we were happy to be out of the sun and didn't mind the lack of a view.   The decent down into Roncesvalles was rough! Seven hours up and then one hour down.  It was a very intense downhill!  However, when we got down to the bottom it literally spit us out at the Albergue.  It is (or was) a monastery and it seems like it exists now solely for the pilgrims.  A whole little economy has sprung up around it. 2 restaurants, 2 hotels, and a shop.   It is sprawling so it looks like a little village but everyone here is a pilgrim or a traveller of some sort.  Very interesting.  Jamie pointed out as we were walking around that it's really been a 1000 year tradition of travellers stopping here.  Really cool to think about .

We are booked tonight for the pilgrim menu at the restaurant across from our hostel.  Hope there's lots of food!  We are famished! 

Starting the CaminoDay 0- St Jean Pied du Port

September 2
Day 0 - St. Jean Pied du Port 

Today we arrived at Bayonne at 9 in the morning after a restless night (for the both of us) on the night train from Paris (we had arrived in Paris via the high speed TGV from Metz in Lorraine after our visit with Sarah and family).  We were pretty anxious/excited to get going, but the logistics of getting to town and getting our bearings straight took a bit of time.  We didn't arrive until about 12:20 and then after we'd had some lunch (we were starving!), purchased a hat for Jamie, and visited the pilgrims office we conceded that it would be a pretty late start for the 15.6 mile journey to the next lodging opportunity given that there is about a mile of climbing involved and we aren't exactly at trail fitness at this point.

Once we came to that conclusion we settled into the nice municipal hostel in town (called Auburgues on the trail).  It holds quite a few people it seems, but is extremely clean given the amount of traffic (tens of thousands of people do this pilgrimage per year, quite a bump up from our AT experiences).  At 8 euro a night, which includes breakfast, I didn't expect the cleanliness or the hot shower!

After our anxiety of losing a day subsided we really just took advantage of the day and even treated ourselves to our first "petite train" experience (we just like the name, but it was very nice).  It took us all along the village and up to the citadel in the middle of the walled town.  The structures are pretty remarkable and we also enjoyed walking around the wall at one point.  One of the bridges is a Unesco world heritage site (shannon graced it with her ukulele this evening), and the topography of the town and the surrounding hills make it a really breathtakingly cute place.

We ended up finding a hat for Shannon as well before the night was out and proceeded to stock up on some groceries for tomorrow's journey.  Tomorrow will actually be the most arduous day, as most of the trip will be flat (especially compared to the AT's dynamic topography).  But given the mountainous nature of tomorrow there isn't any place to find provisions along the way so we've packed ourselves a nice lunch (complete with fresh vegetables, another rarity we aren't used to while hiking!). 

Our spirits are quite high after our lovely day in town and we were glad we chose this as the starting place of our journey, even though we won't be able to walk straight through to the end.  Given our time frame we will have to skip a rather large portion at some point - we will figure it out as we go, but we think perhaps the middle third of this particular route we may not do.

Bon nuit!  Tomorrow Spain awaits!

September 4-7- Adventures in the Land of Hemingway

Having hiked 17 miles of the trail we came to a rough realization: there were simply too many people on the trail!  When we arrived at our destination (a very small town) we found the albergue and all private hostels completely booked (and by 5PM!).  We were not alone.  We were wandering around with a group of 6 other pilgrims.  All exhausted and not able to continue. We finally found a little hidden Cafe/Hotel/Shop that had two rooms and gave them over to the most physically and emotionally exhausted members of our group.  That left the two of us and our new BFFs (best friends forever) Spencer and Kristy.  After a failed attempt to get a pension owner to let us sleep on his lawn, we asked him to call us a taxi and take to Pamplona.  He happened to also own a pension in Pamplona and as we didn't want to have to wander around and find a place, we went right there and checked in.  And by "right there" I mean we sat on his porch for nearly an hour waiting for the taxi and Spencer managed to help navigate a phone conversation about a hat with an English speaker (who could speak no Spanish) and the Pension owner (who could speak no English). Very fun.  During this time, we got to know Kristy and Spencer better and by the time we go to Pamplona we were committed.   

Being in Pamplona we decided to take a day off and tour around.  We hung out the next day with Kristy and Spencer, got a sim card for the phone, ate breakfast in the Art Deco cafe Iruna and then bought a delicious picnic lunch and lots of wine and spent the rest of the day lounging around.  At some point, we ended up back at the pension where we met a lovely Swedish couple and then we all drank more wine, wandered next door and had dinner together.   Overall, an excellent time! 
The next morning,  Kristy and Spencer walked on but we decided that as my birthday was coming up, we might as well stick around and tour and celebrate and drink wine in Hemingway's favorite bar and make sure to experience Pintxos  (Basque for tapas) in as many bars as humanly possible.   Success!  We went out for a real dinner on the night of my Birthday at this place, Baserri, that has won (according to the lonely planet) loads of awards.   The food was good, albeit a bit strange.   I got duck-which was amazing, but it came with a scoop of green apple sorbet on top of apple compote and  with homemade potato chips on the side.  The presentation was lovely and once I got past the strangeness of it, the flavors melded perfectly.  But it was a bit strange.
Right.  So that was Pamplona. We walked the route of the "running of the bulls",  we were lucky enough to be in town for the "medieval festival", and we toured the city via the ancient stone walls that still surround it.  Over all, pretty awesome stop and I'm glad we decided to stick to Pamplona instead of bouncing around to other cities.

So,  the Camino.  The lazy approach to the Camino.  We don't have enough time to walk the entire thing so we are skipping ahead to the town of Leon and will walk from there. Technically you only need to do the last 100km to get the certificate.  Not that it really matters to us.   But from Leon it's still another 336.1km (208.9 miles).  We've got 13 days.  Perfect!  I am a bit worried about the sleeping situation.  There are so many people walking that we imagine it will happen again, but we'll try to figure out a plan where we won't be so dead by the time we get to a hostel so that we can walk on if necessary.

Life is so good!