On the train to St. Jean Pied de Port

On the train to St. Jean we sat with a nice young woman from Nice who is on her way to a design competition. Then a woman, my age and her grand daughter who joined us from Germany Were carrying backpacks. It turns out That They are on their way to walk the Camino. The mother said she will not begin in St. Jean. Likewise she feels like she packed to much. She does not know if she will walk the full way Because she does not know if she can. I certainly understand. My pack weights 17 pounds. I wanted it to weigh 12 pounds, but can not figure out what I should leave behind.

We just left the Bordeaux train station. We are now in wine country. The French countryside is pretty with rolling hills, farmland, and deciduous trees.  Most of the houses are light colored stucco with red clay roofs like in Mexico.

Something that surprises me is the graffiti and tagging on buildings, subways and even under bridges in southern France.  I thought this was an American thing, now I am curious as to where it started.

After a few hours on the train I sat next to two women. They came with backpacks. They are from Germany. Changing trains in Bayonne. We looked around and there are people all around us with backpacks. We met a lively woman from Australia and 1 other man from Germany. The train we boarded to go to St. Jean was only 1 very large modern rail car, filled with all of us filled with the anticipation of starting our Camino. After less than an hours ride we all got off and got on a bus. There were 45 of us. The ride was beautiful ascending up into the Pyrenees, with lush ground cover, trees and a river. Arriving in St John was like a dream. We followed the pilgrim shells to the passport office to get our passport. When we arrived it was closed and would reopen in  another 30 minutes. It was now 7:30 pm. We looked for an abergue to stay for the night.  We came to the last one and the woman there had no rooms left but was calling to find beds for a German couple and then began looking for us. In the meantime another Austrian man joined us. Finally after 40 minutes of her looking she sent us off to the pilgrims office to see about getting a taxi to the next town. When we arrived there were 14 of us without beds. They got us registered quickly, called a taxi and half of the group took off for an albergue up the mountain. The other half of us waited another 30 minutes for the van to return. We were left with our German and Austrian friends. The driver spoke Spanish and Angie turned out to be our interpreter. We arrived at 10:00 PM in Valcarlos having had no dinner. We went for tapas with out friend from Austria and returned back just before midnight to spend the night on the top bunk in a room with 20 other pilgrims and a shared co-ed bathroom to the tune of soft snoring, tossing and turning and and an occassional gasp and gag. :)

August 31, 2014

Today is the first day of our walk on the Camino.  It has been such a challenge  to get a WiFi connection.  Tonight again I cannot access WiFi on my phone, but the albergue/hostel has computers with internet. The cost is 2 Euros to connect and it has taken me 10 minutes of my 15 to logon and so I will type fast. As soon as possible I will add text from the last few days.

It has been a wonderful journey, but with a few challenges.  There was no where to stay in Saint Jean last night and so we had to go by taxi with 7 others to Valcarlos, 8 kilometers away.  So then we walked through the Pyrenees today instead of over them.  It was absolutely gorgeous with very high green mountains and pristine water falls.  It was also the hardest hike I have ever taken.  We hiked mostly uphill for 6 hours today with 19 pound backpacks.  My heart was pounding and despite the beauty I had to wonder, if I am truly up for this.  The last couple hours my legs felt very weak and I could only walk a short ways and then continue.  I thought we would never stop hiking up the mountain.  Along the way we only saw one other person.  Most of the time we were in gorgeous wooded areas with song birds, ferns, dense trees and black berries.  Thank God for the blackberries.  I would stop and eat a few as I walked.  They were a wonderful distraction from the challenge of the climb.  They reminded me that the joy is in the small moments of the journey and not in the destination.

We arrived at a beautiful 200 bed hostel which is very new.  We are sleeping  in a 4 bunk bed cubicle with young men who do not speak English and I have not found out where they are from yet.  I went to the Pilgrims mass in a lovely church next to the hostel and we ate a wonderful Pilgrims dinner with 8 others at our table at the hostel.  The food was delicious: trout, potatoes, potato soup and ice cream bars for dinner.  I met 4 Germans.  One of the gentlemen has been walking from his home in Germany since the end of May and will continue walking on to Santiago.

I  am grateful we survived the first day, and blessed by extreme beauty, wonderful people from all over the world and a comfortable bed to sleep on.