I took a train this morning from Biarritaz to Bayonne and then thought I was going to
take a train from Bayonne to Saint-Jean, as I did on my last trip years ago. However the French Railways has discontinued
the train and now runs a bus instead. Our driver was a young lady half the size
of a sumo wrestler and apparently just as strong. The road to here is narrow
and very curvy, but she woman-handled that big bus through the mountain roads
as if she were driving a sports car. At some points the road was so narrow that
if a car had been coming from the opposite direction, one of the vehicles would
have had to back up and find a place to pull off to let the other one pass, and
the curves were so sharp that it looked impossible to get that bus around them,
but she did.
By the time we arrived, a number of us on the bus were
friends, because we were all here to do the Camino. First we registered at the Pilgrim’s Office and got our
pilgrims pass, 2 euros. The pass is what allows us to stay at the refuges for
a very cheap price. Here’s a picture of the front door of the Pilgrim’s Office.
One of the guys who came on the bus is Italian, and Italian
is the only language he speaks. He’s been paling around all day with a Japanese
guy who only speaks Japanese and English. I have no idea how they communicate.
(I am sitting in the refuge’s kitchen writing this, and from
the dorm where I am going to sleep, I can hear very loud snoring, and it’s only
4:30 in the afternoon. This is not going to be a pleasant night. Here is a picture of our dorm.)
I also picked up a clamshell at the Pilgrim’s Office to attach
to my backpack. Legend has it that Pilgrims used to continue to the ocean after
they reached Santiago where they would pick up a clamshell to bring back and
prove that they had been there. Now people carry a clamshell from the start. I’m
not sure just what purpose the clamshell serves now, but it does make me feel
superior to people who don’t have one. Here’s
what mine looks like.
Finally, here’s a picture of one of the gates in the old
wall that still surrounds Saint Jean. I’ll leave the town through that gate
when I head up the Pyrenees in the morning. Incidentally, it's been cold and rainy today, and the forecast fot the next two days is for storms, so it should be an interesting hike across the mountains.
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