22 September, Day 1: To Saint Jean Pied de Port

Distance: 35km

Testing the brakes

I woke up with sore arms from hauling the bags yesterday (I never thought of training my upper body for this trip, big mistake!).

The day was very foggy; we put together the bicycles and loaded them. We had breakfast at the place: bitter coffee and mini-toast...

We left around 9:40, after several stops: get the bike computer; take out the gloves, the reflecting vest... until we were finally ready to start.

On the way, we started meeting pilgrims and bicigrinos; some shouted at us that we were going in the wrong direction. The landscape is of pastureland in the lower part of shallow valleys, with forest on the sides; there are sheep and cows.

In Roncesvalles, the Pilgrim's office wasn't open yet, so we waited together with two ladies from Sao Paulo (Br), who had come from SJPP. The office is part of La Colegiata, the main building in Roncesvalles. Since nobody was coming, I walked around to ask at the Tourist Office, but instead I bumped into a young cyclist, maybe 19-20 years old, whom I asked if she had come from France. It turned out that she has come, on her own, all the way from her town in Switzerland (1000km in 16 days).

According to her, the climb from SJPP is not as hard as they say, but she did do it by the road and not the camino, since it has been raining a lot and it is very muddy.

By then, the office was open. We filled a questionaire: religion, procedence, reason to do the Camino, means (on foot, on bike, on horseback), nationality, and in exchange, we received our "credencial", a document that identifies us as pilgrims able to use the hostels and where one collects stamps of the places one passes, as proof that you've done the Camino. There, we got our first stamp.

We said goodbye to the Brazilian ladies and the Swiss girl and started the short climb to Alto de Ibañeta. The fog was a bit thick, so before starting downhill, we stopped to put on an extra jacket below the vest, plus lights for the bicycles. And then we went down. The temperature in Micael computer was 16 degrees (Celcius) when we started and as we started going down, it dropped to 12.4 degrees. Chillly.



The road is flanked by mixed forest and some areas with conifers; Micael was having fun identifying trees species as we went: chestnut, ash, beec, Norway spruce, alnus, tilia, sorbus.


We met several bicigrinos and cyclists climbing. The latter, we assume, had a support vehicle carrying their stuff. Here, we did see several couples and some of them older than us.

We stopped in the village of Valcarlos, very picturesque. There, we had coffee and a chat with the owner of the cafe.

We continued downhill and reached another village - Arnegi - where, after crossing a bridge, we came across the first French sign, advising about speed limits on the French roads.

Arnegi

By 1pm, we reached SJPP. The hostel "Chemin vers L'Etoile" - where we had booked- is located in the old part of town, but it was closed until 4pm, so we went to have a look around, stopped by the Office of Friends of the Camino, where the fellow was very kind and got very excited when he learned I'm Costarrican, since he's just been there. So far, my very very basic French has survived.
We climbed to see the walled Citadel and by 2:30, when the shops opened, we looked for a supermarked to get some lunch.

The town is very pretty, with nice old houses made of stone and tiled roofs and with its cobblestone streets in the old part. We stopped by a statue of "Renaud" (who must have done something very good for his country to be there) and had our lunch there.

Saint Jean Pied de Port

By then, the hostel had opened and we were received by Eric, the "hospitalero" (usually, volunteers who help run the hostel), who showed us where to leave the bicycles and our room, where there were two other beds that maybe, maybe not would be used by other pilgrims. It is a three story, XVI century building, with a nice central staircase and the steps worn by use.

Albergue

We showered, washed some clothes and went over to the park, where we sat and watched people and cars pass (apart from a parade of different models of campers, a group from a French club of old small sports cars did quite a show).

Saint Jean Pied de Port

There was a comunitarian dinner at 7pm, so we returned to the hostel. We were only six people: Eric the hospitalero (French, with his 12 year old son), Anita the hospitalera (German, with her son Felipe), plus two Canadian ladies. We had good local wine, vegetable soup, stew, olives, ham, bread and very pleasant company and conversation.

The Canadian ladies explained that they are using a service that will take their bags ahead to their next stop, so they only carry a small daypack with a minimum load.

By 9:30, we were in bed.