St Jean to Orisson

After breakfast and goodbyes with Alan and Malou we finally set off around 10.30am to the Cathderal and the start of the camino de Santiago de Compostela.

We knew that the walk up and over the Pyreenees was the most physically challenging of the whole trip, so, as it was a choice of 8km or 28km, we decided on 8km and booked ahead at the only place there is to stay on the way; Orisson.

It was only 8km but it was also our first day and quite warm and completely and steeply up hill. I felt quite light headed a couple of times but we made it in not too long a time (less than three hours including a lunch break) and arrived hot and sweaty and ready for a shower and a beer in the shade.

After beer one Leonie wandered off for a lie down and I went into the bar to check out the internet. It so happened it was broken but a guy started chatting to me there. Clearly a local and wanting to talk about the All Blacks. Since he was a local rugby fanatic in his mid fifties I took a punt and asked if he knew Rob. Of course he did. Though it would seem he was a better player. His team were the French champions and then he went on to play first division rugby in England for Stratford on Avon and then for Leicester.

He asked what we had been doing in St Jean and when I told him that we had been to visit Gaby Camou at the hotel he began more long stories of how Gaby was now mayor of Uhart Cize(the next village to St Jean but only about 1.5minutes walk away) and his own father was mayor before Gaby. Then he insisted on taking me back to the apartments he owns as a seasonal summer project. I looked for Leonie but she had wandered off somewhere so headed off with this Jean character back down the exact steep narrow road we had just walked up. We met Leonie at the first corner and she jumped in the back and we spent an hour or so drinking sangria and talking more about basque people.

Leonie and I have both decided we like them.

It was quite a job to get him to take us back to Orisson. He insisted that it was too early for dinner. Which of course it was and was not. The pilgrim menu is a set meal at a set time. Miss it and you don´t eat! So back we went, ate and had an early night to prepare for the 20km walk up the Pyrenees the next day.