Challenged

Caroline drives us across a small river and announces that we have arrived in France. There are houses and businesses on both sides of the river; those to the south or west are in Spain, and the ones we are passing now are in France. Prices in stores are better on the Spain side, Caroline explains, but real estate prices are better in France. What's a person to do?

A few kilometers further and we arrive in the beautiful and historic little town of St. Jean Pied-du-Port. Here, the river runs right through the middle of the town, or else this is a feeder river to the other.
The cold, beautiful river rushes over rocks as it tumbles down on its way out of the Pyrenees and then is tamed by walls through the little city. It is a walled city from perhaps the 16th century (Laura will probably check me on this, I can´t remember the details at the moment.) Many of the medieval pilgrims were French and they started at a tower near Notre Dame in Paris, according to James Michener in his book Iberia, and the French Route, the Camino Francese, went through St. Jean. There are scallop shell desisgns (the symbol of the route) embedded in the cobbled streets, as well as a fountain outside of the church. They are the first of many that we will see on this trip.



I would love to return to this little town and explore it more. Even though it is in France, it is still part of the Basque region. As we drove by fields filled with sheep, Caroline explained that the particular breed with black faces and legs is unique to Basque. From the milk of these sheep is made a special cheese, Ossau Iraty (I think I have that right). I haven´t had a chance to taste it yet. Lunch before we started was real French quiche with a light, wonderul salad in a little back garden of a cafe.

We registered in the official pilgrim's office and got our credentials stamped again (they were stamped at the alburgue in Pamplona, and then we were also able to get them stamped at the Cathedral and at the City Hall - we're starting to look a little, just a little, official!). They also give us some helpful information about alburgues and other useful things. We choose our official St. James scallop shell (they're much larger than in the US - about 4 - 5 " across) and tie them onto our backpacks, where they will stay for the duration of our journey. And then, with the well-wishes of the office volunteers, we are off!

We go down the hill on SJPP's cobblestone street and set foot out of the city gate and taking our first official step on our pilgrimage. Our first choice awaits us 100 yards up when we have to choose between the over the mountain route or the route that goes by the road we just traveled. Where we are staying this night is 6 km up the over the mountain route. We chose this based on Caroline´s recommendation. The road she just brought us on was the windiest road I have perhaps ever been on with more hairpin turns and no shoulder. It also would have had no views to speak of, other than over the guardrail into gullies. On the other hand, the over-the-mountain route was leaving us open to a much more physically challenging route, possibly through difficult weather, but with the promise of exquisitely stunning views of the Pyrenees. That´s why we had chosen the latter. Last week here was very warm, but the week before they had had snow in the upper elevations! And this is late May we are beginning!

Well, we began the over-the-mountain route. Very shortly after we started climbing, I saw a fragment of blue and white tile. I collect blue and white china bits from when I'm out walking - it seems I find them in the strangest places. I picked this piece up and I almost put it in my pocket to save as a souvenir. But then I put it back down in the dirt. I decided that part of this journey was about learning to let go, about learning to do with less (it might not seem like much, but across all those miles, it would get to be a lot - especially if I kept adding to the collection!). So I kept going...

I can honestly say that those first 6 km kicked my butt. By the end, I was going telephone pole to telephone pole and taking a brief rest at each one before I could go on! At the risk of sounding overly pious (because I most certainly was not), I was taking three deep breaths at each stop, one in the name of each member of the Trinity. Not for any reason other than it gave me more time to pause and contemplate how in the world I was going to go on. It felt like we were climbing virtually straight upward. Compared to where all three of us live, it was vertical! Mary seemed to be doing fine (on a relative basis), while Stella was coming up slowly behind me. I couldn't imagine, if the rest of the trip was going to be anything like this, how I was ever going to accomplish it. But we kept turning around and saying, ¨Oh...look!¨ because the vistas were so stunning.



If I was happy to get to Madrid Airport, I was really happy to get to Hunnto, the ´gite rural´ (French way to say "B&B out in the country") where we stayed. It was superb. We ended up with a private room. Mary had a double bed downstairs and Stella and I had twins up in the loft. Our sliding glass doors opened to a common balcony with a to-die-for view of the Pyrenees, with sheep and cows baaing and mooing just outside.

Dinner was a wonderful peasant fare of flavorful, rustic vegetable soup, crusty bread, and chicken in a buttery sauce with lentils, all flavored superbly, followed by a local cheese with homemade blueberry preserves, and then a small apple tart. And local wines. Yummm. The dining room had the same view of the mountains and valleys, along with a courtyard with a rose arbor. They grow the most beautiful, lush roses over here, deep red, orange and yellow in particular. We had people at the table from Korea, France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland and America (that we know of, there may have been more). It was a full day in the richest sense of the word. God is gracious.