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| YOU LOOKING AT ME, MATE? |
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| RONCESVALLES ABBEY |
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| ALEXIS AND MARI SHARED THEIR FOOD WITH ME |
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| TENT TUCKED AWAY IN WOODS |
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| MORNING VIEW FROM COL BAGARGIAK |
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| FEET BEARING UP - WITH A LITTLE HELP |
The days have been very warm, making walking quite exhausting, but at least my exhaustion has ensured that I have been sleeping well in spite of the nights being warm too. There also seem to be a large number of flies about, which is a particular nuisance when eating.
I left the Sorogain hostel at 8.30am after a good breakfast. Hostels tend to be in valleys, so it is inevitable that each day starts with a climb.
It took me 4 hours to reach Auritz-Burguete, my first destination of the day. There is supermarket here so I can stock up with food for the next couple of days. I ate some of it at the nearby picnic tables on the basis that food somehow seems less heavy in my stomach than my rucksack. Whist eating, along came Carlos again, having walked to same route as me. He had decided to take a rest day in Auritz-Burguete whereas I was about to proceed to Roncesvalles.
For a while I would be following a section of the Camino de Santiago. After following a straight and level path (perhap this is significant) for half an hour I reached the famous monastery at Roncesvalles, an important stopping place for pilgrims walking the Camino.
The monastery is an impressive place so I had a good look round before continuing northwards on the Camino. The rather assertive arrows on the frequent signs kept reminding me that I was walking in the wrong direction. I wondered if this made me a bad pilgrim?
There was a constant flow of walkers of many nationalities coming towards me offering their greeting of 'Buen Camino' which means 'Good Way'. Once again I bumped into my three Spanish friends who were also using part of the trail, but the right way round in their case.
I departed the Camino at Col de Bentarte to head east along the GR11 for a while, then deviated north near Azpegi. I soon found myself following a road which turned out not to be the one I had initially thought. Feeling adventurous I decided to to follow it anyway and see where it would lead me even though it was starting to get late and I needed somewhere flat to pitch my tent. I came across couple, Mari and Alexis, cooking a barbeque at a picnic site alongside the path. Not only did they find me a suitable campsite in the woods but the also shared their food and wine with me. You can never tell how the day will turn out!
Overnight I was woken by thunder and lightning. It was the first sign that I was approaching the higher mountains
Next morning I worked out that I was in a place called Arrazola and set about getting myself back on my intended route. This involved a couple of pretty steep climbs on grassy pathless slopes. The weight of my rucksack made climbing laboriously slow. Other than a solitary farmer, I didn't see anyone until I reached the summit of Okabe, in spite of it being a Saturday. This 1,466m peak was crowded with folk on weekend daywalks.
From Okabe I quickly picked up the GR10 and headed for Chalet Pedro and then les Chalets d'Iraty, where I found hostel accommodation at Col Bagargiak located at an altitude of 1,327m.
Next morning as I looked east at the beautiful snow-patched mountains which comprised the Cirque de Lescun, and the cloud inversion below me, I realised that if I carried on the way I was I would create memories of the Pyrenees that were filled with pain and discomfort. I needed to reconsider how I would explore then.
I took my time over breakfast, then I patched my sore feet and washed the salt stains from my shirt. I then looked south towards the huge 2,017m Pic d'Orhy which was meant to be my goal for the day. It was shrouded in mist.
I realised that this was mountain to enjoy by travelling with a light daysack, not hauling up an 18kg load only to find myself enveloped in cloud.
Another matter to consider was that I was already one day behind my planned schedule after only 5 days - and that was in spite of walking 10-12 hour days for the past three days. I had clearly underestimated the difficulty of the challenge and would never get to the Mediterrannean coast in time for my flight home at this rate.
A final consideration was that when I wrote the introduction to this blog I was having to put up with various 'twinges' in my right leg that I attributed to sciatica. Since then, the twinges have gone away, to be replaced by 'twangs' in my right knee as if a tendon is catching on a bony protrusion as I walk. This causes no pain, but it is still an irritation.
It is a Sunday which seems to me to be a very good day to reassess my goals and consider my options.
Watch this space!