Hubris, meet humility

The Camino has a couple starting points but the one Jeremy, myself, and many other pilgrims took begins just over the French border on the other side of the Pyrenees in Saint Jean Pied de Port. It´s a pretty, rustic town at the base of one of the region´s major ranges. Day one is also the most physically challenging stage of the entire journey. The plan was to hike just over 20 miles and gain a net 1200 meters, about 3,700 feet...and that was before our unplanned detour.

You see, there are two routes from St. Jean to Roncesvalles, the ending point for the day. One parallels the river and main road and the other is a more challenging route through a higher mountain pass. This more technical route was temporarily closed due to heavy snowfall and dangerous conditions. We certainly planned to take the safe and recommended route but right out of town we unknowingly took a left instead of a right (I´d try to defend myself and say it was an ambiguous turn, but it was pretty easy to read) and started climbing up the wrong path. About 10km later and 300m higher, Jeremy and I began to notice our directions were a little off. We stopped to talk with a farmer on the side of the road and eventually found out we were on the forbidden path. Through a awkard exchange of french meets english that consisted mostly of exaggerated gestures and over-emphasizing certain syllables, (which never helps but we all seem to do it anyway) we think the farmer told us there was a shortcut to meet up with the proper path. Jeremy and I thought about it but decided it was best to backtrack down to the town and start again. Halfway back down towards Saint Jean we managed to hitch a ride with a guy who told us we made the right decision to start over. He told us the other route was closed for good reason, four people had died in the high mountain pass within the last year alone after failing to heed the warning and getting stranded. That made us feel significantly better about our decision to go back.

Once we were on the right track we started moving quickly to make up the lost 2 hours. The trail wound through various towns and wilderness as it followed the river up the mountain. The scenery was gorgeous, some of it reminded me of the Smokies in Tennessee until we´d see a towering white capped peak just a short distance away. As we made our way closer to Roncesvalles, we crossed the snowline and the temperature dropped pretty significantly. I´m now very glad we were able to borrow some warm gear from Inigo. It was also funny to see pilgrims´ unwanted gear strewn to the side of the trail as they tried to shed weight while climbing the mountain. We found extra tennis shoes, large hardcover books, and even a handcart (really?) on the side of the trail. Towards the top I really began to feel the physical strain of climbing so far with 25 extra pounds on my back. I made the mistake of not training at all for the hike. I figured I was able to cycle much greater distances through much higher elevations so simply walking seemed easy! Hah, man I was wrong. It didn´t help that all the waterfountains along the trail were frozen and out of order so I was pretty significantly dehydrated as my liter water bottle was finished miles ago. That climb through the mountain pass was one of the most physically and mentally challenging experiences I´ve had in a long time, JOH included.

Once we finally crossed the peak of the ridge and descended about 200m to Roncesvalles, it was around 6pm and I was exhausted. I lied in bed til around 730 when we had dinner reservations at the restaurant for peregrinos, spanish for hikers. We ate with two other Americans, an Italian, and a Korean we had met the night before and we´ve stayed with most of them for the past week. Dinner on the camino consists partly of all the wine and french bread you want, something I´m going to miss when I get home. We ate fish, fries, soup, and more as we joked about how little we had all trained and how good the wine tasted. Shortly after dinner around 9, we all passed out with no trouble at all. I´m really starting to enjoy this carefree lifestyle.