Day 40 October 5 Larceveux to St Jean Pied-de-Port

21 km 415 ascent 387 descent 5 hr. 19⁰C

Pilgrimage Total

814.3 km 16,520 ascent 16,595 descent 187 hr.

The dinner was quite good last night, and we managed to sleep really well. Everything was in plastic and I checked a few times and there was no evidence of bed bugs.

The hotel owner was really very nice. It was a good breakfast, and we then took coffee outside to wait for our 8:30am taxi. It never arrived. At 8:40am we talked about this with the owner. He said we should hurry, there was a bus to Larceveux leaving from the church at 8:49am that got there at 9:12am. It cost 2 euro each. The cab was going to cost 30 euro. Why didn’t La Pelerine tell us about the bus?

We were concerned about abandoning the cab since it was supposedly arranged, and I was worried our bags might end up in Larceveux instead of St. Jean Pied de Port. If we took off, which we would have to do now, and missed the bus, and in the meantime our cab arrived and we weren’t there, well, that would be a problem. Instead we called La Pelerine, but Alexiane didn’t start until 9am. I got the hotel owner to call and talk to the other lady in French. Nothing could be straightened out until Alexiane arrived. There was no record of the cab being ordered.

When Alexiane arrived at the office she confirmed she should have reserved a cab, they ordered a cab, and it would be there soon. That’s what happens when you start changing things at the last minute. A lady finally arrived in an unmarked car. It was the cab drivers wife. She was recruited to drive the pilgrims to Larceveux. Good thing she didn’t have anything else she was supposed to be doing. I must say though that I was happy we got the cab drivers wife and not the cab driver. The ride was very civilized, and I never saw my life flash before my eyes.

At first she pulled over on the D933 and was going to drop us off there. The GR65 cut the highway there, so it seemed like it was a good choice. She was still partially on the road, they don’t believe in shoulders in France any more than they do in Italy. A lot of cars were going by honking their horns and swerving to avoid her and the oncoming traffic. I suppose slowing down never crossed their minds. I was a bit afraid to take off my seat belt in case we got hit, so I asked if she could drop us off at the Hotel Espellet instead. She agreed and we merged back on the highway in the midst of a lot of horn blowing.

When we got to Hotel Espellet, she said her husband had told her the ride was free because of the mix-up. We gave her 10 euro anyway, which she seemed happy enough to take. We got there around 10am, 50 minutes later and 6 euro more than the bus. Not too bad, but lesson learned.

The Hotel Espellet looked like everything we had come to expect. It was probably very grand in its day, but it was very run down and needing work. I’m glad we didn’t stay there.

As I’ve mentioned, I had prepared detailed maps of coming in and going out of each village we stayed in at home before we left. I was trying to avoid bad memories from Italy of spending hours trying to find our hotel. Russell and I got into another argument about how to go. I wanted to get back onto the GR65 based on my map, versus his GPS. I told him, sometimes I know what to do.

As it turned out, I was right. The problem with the GPS was that we had to go in the wrong direction at first, because the hotel was off the GR65. Yikes!

It was a lovely walk into St. Jean Pied-de-Port today. The Pyrenees were constantly there in front us, and we had the usual mountain top views of the landscape below, thanks to climbing several hills.

The weather today was perfect for going fast, 19⁰C.

We passed a fellow sitting eating what looked like a raisin danish about a km from Gamarthe. He looked like a real jock. By this time I had to go to the bathroom and I was on the lookout for a good place to go. There was nothing on the Micheline guide for a long way and I knew the jock probably wasn’t too far behind us. As we were entering the village, we happened upon a lovely Pilgrim rest stop.  Russell was ahead of me and went sailing by, so I had to yell at him to come back.

The pilgrim from France (the water bottle guy) was there. It was a take what you like sort of deal, with a cookie tin for donations. There was a fridge with soft cheese and milk. Cake, coffee, and tea. There was also an outhouse. Hooray.  The place also had a litter of 4 kittens that were absolutely adorable. 

Portugalot back from the outhouse, the jock was there. He is from Portugal, and walked to Santiago a year or so ago along a route from Portugal that merged onto the French Way around Puenta La Reine. This year he started from some place east of Le Puy, and was going to walk to Puenta la Reine, if he had enough time. A very nice fellow, very handsome and he spoke English.

He was having a pot of the soft cheese, and one of the kittens was trying desperately to get some of it. Mommy cat arrived a bit later and all the kitties clamored all over themselves getting to her. She herded them into a chair and they all had some mommy milk.

We left first, and I expected he would pass us shortly.

We were getting into the serious climbing part of the journey today, and we started running into all the familiar pilgrims. We passed the French guy, the Spanish guys, several pilgrims we met at the meet and greet in Navarrenx, the 5 vegetarians, the fellow who found my wallet and his wife (who were now travelling with a good half dozen other ladies). Everyone said we were running, but Russell said this was the speed we always walked at.

At one point on a mountain, we ran into a herd of sheep going from one field to another. 

We stood off to the side and watched them funnel by. This procession, of course, resulted in a lot of fresh sheep poop all over the road.

I discovered there was a new dimension to my cow manure theory. The theory we put forth on the Spanish part of the Camino was that, when you first started out fresh in the morning, you totally avoided the cow manure, as you got more tired you became less inclined to go out of your way to miss it, and when you were totally exhausted, you walked right through it. With these sheep passing, I came to realize that, no matter how fresh or how tired you are, there are times when you can’t avoid walking in the manure, no matter how hard you try.

At St-Jean-le-Vieux, we stopped and ate our lunch at a bench outside the old church. These benches are not constructed in a manner that allows you to level anything on them! Of course we also went in and visited the church. It was lovely.

I just knew the Spanish guys would be stopped at a bar for some liquid refreshment for lunch, and we passed them again as we were leaving, drinking their beers.

Just 4 km left to go on our pilgrimage. We were feeling very nostalgic about being in St. Jean Pied de Port again. We could see the route we took up the Pyrenees 3 years ago as we approached. This time, as we entered we went past the Citadel. It was a long climb up to the top, and the Way took us half way up, so we took a detour and finished the climb up to the Citadel and wandered around the park. There is a high school there, and after walking over a bridge, that would have been a drawbridge back in the day, we saw some students sitting smoking on the rampart (two very dangerous things to do – one in the long run and the other in the short run). There was a sign saying no entry – except for students.

We wandered around for a bit, and then exited via the stairs we had climbed up and carried on. In ten minutes we were at the Porte de St. Jacques, our journey complete.

The fellow from Portugal arrived, and we took turns taking pictures of each other under the portal. I said, ‘I thought you were going to pass us’, and he said, ‘yes, but you go at a very good pace’. I think he likes to stop frequently.

We stopped at the Centre de Pellerins, where we had started on the Camino three years ago, and got our passports stamped. The fellow from Hamburg we met yesterday at the snack bar in Larribar was there, and the agent was spending a lot of time explaining everything under the sun to him, none of which seemed to be registering. I wonder about him. Can he really be that clueless, or is he very needy and likes the attention.

There was a very long line of pilgrims, and I was feeling trapped and claustrophobic in there. I gave my passport to Russell and said I was going to the hotel. I’ve been fretting all day about the bags getting messed up because we changed our itinerary.

When I got to the hotel, the bags were there. Hallelujah. The lady said, you are just picking up your bags, not staying, right. When they arrived, she noticed we had cancelled our room for Oct 6. I said yes, we did cancel our room for Oct 6 and were going to just pick up our bags, but this is Oct 5, and we have a new reservation for today. There was a long delay, she made some phone calls. I was getting a bit annoyed. I then clarified that the new reservation had been made just a couple of days ago. She said, oh. She then said, I have rooms, that isn’t a problem. I guess she was worried about who would pay.

Anyway, after a lot of humming and hawwing she finally found the new reservation, and all was well. The room wasn’t ready (it was 2:30pm), so we said we would go sit at the bar, and fished all sorts of stuff out of our suitcases. She seemed to find that amusing. I asked her if we could wash our boots. She said she would give us a pail and a scrub brush, and we could go down to the river. I thanked her and said we would do it later.

At 3:40pm she told us the room was ready, and we brought everything up. There is an elevator, which Russell was very happy about. We are on the second floor and he is having a major problem with his back. Unfortunately I’m no help with lugging the bags around (not totally true, if I bring it up, I pull it up the stairs one at a time on the wheels, resting after every step).

Before having a shower, we went back down and got the promised bucket and brush and went down to the river to clean our boots. That all went well. When we got back Russell was about to open his suitcase and I suggested he wash his hands first. The boots were covered with, among other things, fresh sheep poop from today.

As far as hotels go, this is certainly among the nicest we have stayed at. It is way better than the hotel Ramuncto we stayed at when we were here in 2013, except for the balcony. I looked at the Hotel Ramuncto as we passed through today, and the room we had in 2013 seems to be the only room with a balcony. We loved sitting out on that balcony, looking at the Pyrenees we would climb the next morning, and watching the sun set.

The dinner was nice here, a lovely soup to start; Russell had chicken and rice and I had veal with chips (the veal had a lemon sauce which made the whole thing taste like lemon meringue pie- a bit strange); and Basque pie for dessert. We splurged, and for our celebratory ‘we have arrived’ dinner we had a lovely bottle of St. John Pied de Port white wine – excellent.

We have noticed over the last week or so, forestry people out cutting the tops off the Plane trees. We have been wondering why they would do that – if there was something wrong with them! The lady in the hotel explained to us that they do it every year between now and December. They will grow back next year.

Jim finally posted an update to his blog yesterday about his journey climbing the Pyrenees. I was very happy to hear that it went very well, and it sounds like it was as meaningful for him as it was for us, when we did it. He also told us the lovely flower is a "passion flower" - the centre is the cross and the surrounding ring the crown of thorns. Thanks, Jim!

Once again, we can’t believe that 34 days of walking have elapsed! The time has just sped by. In total, we walked 814.3 km and climbed 16.5km (as recorded by the GPS). That is remarkably close to the 19.7 km we climbed walking 787km on the via Francigenia last year. There was a lot more climbing on the portion of the Camino in France than on the Spanish portion.

It will take time to fully appreciate the personal and spiritual significance of walking this ancient pilgrimage route. In particular, I think I’ve managed to achieve a new level of acceptance and peace with getting laid off. However, we did notice that it seemed less spiritual walking this portion of the Camino than it did walking to Santiago. Of course Santiago is the ultimate destination of the Camino, and where St. James is supposed to rest, which may contribute to it. Also, the churches in Spain are much more numerous and beautiful than in France, the French Revolution likely having a lot to do with that. I think also that we were more isolated on this journey because of our language. Most other pilgrims here were French, whereas there was a greater mix of languages on the Spanish portion (putting us all on a more level playing field). However, as I have always said, it is not the destination, but the journey that is important.

This is the 4^th time we have walked an ancient pilgrimage route. As we have experienced on every journey, the scenery was magnificent; we visited/experienced/ walked past endless sites with major religious, historical, cultural, and archeological significance; we experienced some thin places; there were highly spiritual moments; we felt a special bond with the other pilgrims we met along the way, this time, especially with Jim; we stayed in some very nice places (proportionately more here); met some very nice people; and once again, the weather was very favorable in the sense that it only rained three times, and only once was it a real downpour. It was a bit hotter than ‘normal’, nothing like the oppressive heat in Italy, but I think this is the new ‘normal’.

So concludes our journey, and our blog. Off now to vacation in Germany.