fair set for Spain

At the foot of the mountain pass 09 06 2010

Wow! We are in St Jean and resting in the refuge. We walked with more people than we have seen since Student Cross today and the refuge is big but everyone is friendly and helpful. We know what to expect in some respects over the next day or two and have more advice for the days to come.

Tomorrow consists of us walking over a mountain pass that is just over 4,700 ft high and then down the other side. We then arrive in a place which consists of only a few buildings. On one side of the road is a monastery with a restaurant/bar either side of it. On the other side of the road is a large building. You queue up then go into the monastery, pay for your night’s stay then go over the road to the building which has one large room with 120 beds and a couple of showers. You sort yourself out, cross to one of the restaurants and show them your pilgrim passport, ask for the pilgrim menu and pay 8 Euros then they tell you when to come back. Food is served between 6 and 8 then back to the hostel to sleep. Oh, and if you want to go to the pilgrim Mass at the monastery you find out when it is, tell the restaurant and they will fit you in before the Mass starts (we will do this).

So, we have gone around St Jean, bought food for tonight, etc and even bought a couple of hiker’s sticks as tomorrow we go up then down quite steeply (6hrs up and 2 down) and with packs on it might be good to have something to help stabilise us as we go. So, 7 Euros each seemed like a good price to pay for that little bit of extra help.

Interestingly, the man at the pilgrim bureau told us that numbers are actually down this year rather than up. It would appear that a combination of factors might be the cause. The economies of various countries may be one, the fact that everyone has been saying how busy it is going to be might be another and the weather might be an additional one. Yes, it did rain for most of the day today but it was not cold and the views, even with clouds and mists, were spectacular. We cannot believe that we are actually in St Jean and tomorrow we will be in Spain! I keep worrying that something might happen and we won’t be able to do it.

I have a big blister on the side of my big toe (right foot) and was wearing flip flops when we went back to speak to the people at the pilgrim advice place and I kept my feet well under the table in case someone looked at them and said, “Sorry, we don’t allow people with such bad feet to go walking in the mountains, it’s too dangerous!”

Well, they missed their chance and I will be heading off tomorrow just like everyone else. They can’t stop me now ... Haaaa haaa ha

The weather forecast does not look great for the next few days but it won’t matter, really. We are just happy to be here and still doing this.

Next stop Spain!!!!

Ultrea!

(PS the pilgrim bureau has a couple of computers connected to the internet so I will put this and the last couple of blogs on a stick and try and up load it soon, Cheers!)

Mountains so green 08 06 2010

We love the Pyrenees because they are so beautiful and part of the reason for their beauty is their setting. They are huge mountains but they are a new range and have not been seriously glaciated and their foot hills are not scoured and stripped by ice age glaciers as the uplands were in much of the UK. So, the milder weather, the moisture from the Atlantic/Bay of Biscay and the thicker soil mean the place is very green and fertile. And then the mountains loom over these hills drawing you towards their misty peaks with their occasional remnants of snow and strange shapes and ominous bulk. Add the good beer, cider and wine, the great food and welcome and the French/Basque/Spanish culture and you have a heady concoction worth savouring.

We, as with the rest of this trip, will simply pass through enjoying glances and brief encounters but will return to sample it all in more detail later.

Today we walked through this lovely land, climbing up the considerable hills and trudging back down them as we drew closer and closer to the fabulous mountains. We had expected it to rain but it began grey and grew warmer and sunnier as the day went on. We stopped at a small town called St Palais to buy some lunch and walked on to the place called Gibraltar where three of the routes join into one Camino for the last day and a half’s walk. We had bought a half kilo of strawberries and had put half the packet in a small plastic box we have so we ate the rest as we headed toward this mythical place.

Our map gave us no clue as to where the other routes actually joined us but we knew that we would see the new, conjoined route on the other side of the valley as we descended towards the “Stele de Gibraltar” which would mark the joining point. We saw the path climbing steeply up the next hill but there was no one walking on it. We sat down on the Stele, which is a funny sort of stone marker with a large stone base, and began to eat our lunch of bread and Rillettes when we saw our firts pilgrims from another route. Two Belgian men who waved to us from a path about 20 metres further down the hill. After 5 minutes they reappeared and asked us if we were sitting on the Stele and we said we were. They took some photos of it and said good bye.

We met them resting at theb top of the next hill. We also met about half a dozen other pilgrims. By the time we arrived in Osterbat where we are staying the night we had encountered a few more and saw lots as we sat in the bar drinking a pression. Now, we are in a Chambre D’Hote just over a Km past the village looking at the weather closing in - black clouds are tumbling off the mountains and filling up the wide sky above the great valley we are on the edge of. It is a large farm with one of its barns converted to take pilgrims and provide a very large dining room. We are in the main house in a room on the ground floor with a sort of conservatory with large windows opening out to the view down the valley looking west. There are at least another 20 pilgrims staying here!

We go in for dinner in about 10 minutes so just a couple of other things before I put this away (there is no internet here, either).

Tomorrow we walk to St Jean Pied de Port and that is our last place in France. We took a copy of all of the maps and texts of the route from Vezelay to there and have been throwing the used ones away each night, so tomorrow night we throw away the last of the Voie de Vezelay papers and begin the Camino Frances.

In just over two months we have been on one pilgrimage made of several parts. One was the walk from Walsingham to Willesden and then on through London to Portsmouth. This had its own character and special moments/experiences that we will never forget. Then we entered France and walked completely openly, seeking assistance from parishes and finding all sorts of new experiences as we grew familiar with the country, its language and peoples. Pilgrims on a route of our own with new places every day and no knowledge of what the night would bring us. Then we entered Vezelay with the wonderful welcome of our friends (Betty and Dougald) and began a new type of pilgrimage; one that was being walked by others and was in some ways very established but still a melange (as the French would say) of unknowns and new experiences. We grew deeply familiar with the route’s guides and their weird style of writing and route planning. We became even more intimately entwined with the French, there land and the heart beats of their society. I have been dreaming in a mixture of English and French since about Chartres...

We have wlaked along eating wild strawberries, we have munched on handfuls of cherries from the trees, we have seen and heard so many different birds, insects and other creatures (French frogs make very loud, weird noises, by the way) and we have walked through glorious forests of all kinds (some for more than 30 km at a time), by huge rivers and lakes, across high ridges and through all kinds of landscapes and towns. Great people, great food and a great deal of things to reflect on

And now we will be entering a new pilgrimage in a new country where we do not know the language, where the new guide is in English (Quoi?) and there are lots of folks to meet, etc....

Just a footnote to this – we had a very good, large but simple meal here and the host sang a variety of songs and had us all join in both during and after the meal. There was a large glass of the local Muscat sweet wine as an aperitif and copious amounts of red wine during the meal so we all had a great time .. food, wine and song. I will post the details of the place which is just 1 km outside Osterbat on the chemin to St Jean.


Sauveterre and all that – we hoped to publish this on 07/06/2010 but couldn’t!

We have a very brief opportunity to connect with the internet and I have been busy writing other things so have not put anything together for the blog for the last few days so let’s do a summary!!!!

The last blog was in a place where we stayed in a convent (Saint Sever). It is also where a version of the Pamplona style bull run takes place in early summer (we are just missing it, actually). So, they block of the streets, send in young bulls and let the local men have some fun being gored by therm. Lovely...

Next was Hagetmau (looks like a German name but is pronounced Hah-jey-mow). Another place with a bull ring and more Spanish/Basque influences. Good place with a lot to see and take in but we were busy sorting ourselves out with the key to the refuge at one end of the town and the refuge at the other. We had it to ourselves (apart from the ghosts) and it was fine – Oh and we bought some flip flops for me, so I am a much happier bunny in the evenings (no longer have to wear the boots all the time!

The walking is getting harder again as we move into the foothills of the Pyrenees so when we arrived in Orthez (which also has a bull ring) we were tired and had spent the whole day in the rain (with thunder and lightning – Alison even put her umbrella away). We stayed in the pilgrim refuge located in a 13th century building where the guy who wrote the original guidebook actually stayed, too... in the 13th century, of course. We shared the place with a pleasant German man who was walking from Seville, via Santiago, to Vezelay. There was also a second German man who was extremely grumpy and quite unpleasant most of the time. He was walking to St Tropez and was staying for 2 nights because he had been severely sunburnt the day before (when it was sunny rather than rainy). It was Monday, we had no food and the shops were all shut so we ended up eating in a little restaurant round the corner (one of only 2 or three open that night).

More hard walking in hillier and prettier country but this time just lots of mist then lots of sun with mist on the horizon. So, we have had hints of the mountains but no more than dark grey outlines. We know they are there – we can read maps, read guide books and we saw them when we were here last, two years ago. So we are in a pilgrim Gite where we are staying in a large house with a similar sort of dream like quality to one I wrote about earlier but this one is closer to my actual dreams with mountains nearby and more characteristics that are similar. Still not any of the places of my dreams, though. The walls on the first floor and on some of landings are covered in material stretched over a wooden frame (as used to be done in the 18th century) so it looks like wallpaper but when you touch the walls there is nothing behind the material, it is the original stretched fabric house!!!

Anyway, we are located in Sauveterre de Bearne and last time we were here we were camping below the medieval town next to the river. We walked over a little bridge at the campsite and walked around the island then. Now we are on the south bank of the river and our room looks out over the river and the same island.

Tomorrow we walk to Osterbat and on the way we join with two of the other routes towards St Jean Pied de Port where we all head up the mountain and into Spain. So, just about lunch time we will walk down a hillside on our own and will look towards a path on the opposite side of the valley. There we will see several other walkers all walking up the valley towards Osterbat. They will be the other pilgrims from the other routes. So tonight is our last night as fairly solitary pilgrims. Tomorrow begins a new type of pilgrimage with much larger refuges, many more people and a mountain range to deal with to boot! Oh, and in a couple of days, as we walk over this large mountain we will cross a line and find ourselves walking on Spanish soil. Another stage in the walk, another set of experiences and lots of new things to get to grips with.

Yes, we are completely without any real idea of what this new stage will be like and we will try to walk into it with open hearts and minds and just see what it brings us. For every pilgrim walking the Vezelay route there are tons more on the other routes (well the Puy route, really). So, when we have been walking with one or two others on the way and with an occasional glut of up to 6 or 7 of us in one place at one time, there will be dozens at every stop from tomorrow and, after Saint Jean Pied de Port, another order of magnitude will kick in... Phew! Weird when you think that we have spent over 2 months walking mainly on our own and have often found ourselves to be the only people in a refuge.