A Pilgrimage Walk from Le Puy-en-Velay to Santiago de Compostela, 2003. 7. Fifth week (23-29 May)
Pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela, 2003.
Week 5 (23-29 May)
Friday, 23 May 2003. Maslacq. [Day 29]
6:15 p.m. Tonight we are staying in the Hôtel Magouber, because the municipal gîte is very small, only four beds, and it was full. The hotel’s restaurant is closed on Fridays, but pilgrims / walkers are welcomed and will be served a dinner at 7:15 p.m.
Caroline walked again today without a backpack, thanks to a group of seven Parisians (from the southern suburbs) at the gîte last night, who have a car (driven in rotation). They dropped off the backpack here and arranged for our room, after having first checked if there was space at the gîte. Tomorrow Caroline will have to walk with the pack. We plan to do 20 km, to Navarrenx.
The owner of the gîte in Casteide-Candau let us off this morning at 8:45 a.m. at the market in Pomps where we had left the trail yesterday. On the way, she drove us through Morlanne, a picturesque town with an impressive castle on a bluff with a full view of the mountains.
(photo from Internet: www.tourisme-bearn-gaves.com)
Then off we went. A morning highlight was the Chapel of Caubin, a small Romanesque church, restored. We walked through Arthez, a town stretched out on long ridge. The road continued on the hillcrest, becoming rather isolated. We had our picnic, and then descend to the Gave (Gave de Pau) River and crossed it to enter Maslacq, a village of no particular historical distinction. This hotel has been here some time, though, so it must be a fixture in the region.
Caroline has taken a long (2 hours +) nap. I took a short nap, did yoga, swam briefly in the pool (extraordinary – two pools in two days!).
The weather today was sunny and warm, even hot. Rain is predicted for tomorrow.
Dinner last night was memorable. Michelle Drucbert, the owner of the gîte, is from Pau (her husband is from Lille), and she ran a fish restaurant there. She served us outdoors: aperitif (kir), salad (with lardons) and three pâtés; confit de canard and potatoes gratinées; cheese plate; chocolate fondant cake with a crème patissière and a bit of fruit sauce. Coffee/tisane (Armagnac forgotten in the lateness of the hour) – three hours, all this took – 3 ½, actually. Along with this excellent and abundant food, we enjoyed the conversation with Michelle and with the group of seven Parisians (four women, three men, of various ages), who are finishing their second day on the trail. With their car, all heavy bags are transported from one hostel to the next; the walkers have only day packs. I would love to walk with just a day pack, but the cost of daily baggage transfers would be very expensive.
I noted to one of the Parisians that dinners tend to be heavy on meat and light on vegetables. We were craving more vegetables.
“In France,” she replied, “meat and fish are considered distinguished, vegetables ordinary. Vegetables, raw in salads or cooked, are eaten at home, or for lunch. At dinner, if eating out or if guests come to your home, you feature meat or fish.” She agreed that for hikers like us, eating out every evening, this diet is not ideal.
We’re proceeding slowly to St. Jean Pied-de-Port, the last stop in France, with daily walks of only 20 km or so. I am a bit impatient, but the locations of gîtes dictate how far we can get. I don’t want to arrive late and tired in St. Jean, with the big ascent the next day.
9:00 p.m. The dinner here at the hotel was very good. We had an excellent salad with Roquefort and walnuts; pork chops and ratatouille (sweetened) and rice ; charlotte aux poires avec fraises fraiches et coulis de fraise (charlotte with pears, with fresh strawberries and strawberry sauce) ; red wine and coffee. At the end we spoke with two women (French) who did the whole chemin four years ago, and who are now redoing the French part. A TV was on throughout the meal (we were served in the bar area). An earthquake in Algeria has done serious damage.
Saturday, 24 May 2003. Navarrenx. [Day 30]
We’re settled in the Gîte Charbel, a private gîte on the outskirts of this small town, next to a large lawn and a garden with a big pond with frogs. The rooms are airy and well lit. But today it has been raining, so we’re confined indoors.
We left the hotel in Maslacq about 8:30 a.m. The skies were gray, but the rain didn’t start for a while. It rained sporadically until about 12:30 p.m., at which time it let loose. We couldn’t find a sheltered picnic spot, but eventually stopped about 2 p.m. from fatigue (me, especially) under a sort of natural bower that kept off the direct rainfall. My fancy poncho, bought long ago in Figeac, has been put to the test. It keeps me dry, but it doesn't breathe; it seals in humidity and body heat.
The countryside is attractive, with much up and down, but the rain hid the mountains. I feel cheated: the views of the Pyrenees must be wonderful on a clear day.
We walked by a nice shrine (Neo-Byzantine, from 1936) to the Virgin Mary, at Muret. Nearby is a huge nuclear power station. Later we visited an impressive church at Sauvelade, the remaining part of a long-gone medieval monastery. On the outskirts of Navarrenx is a rugby field, a reminder that in this corner of France, rugby reigns supreme, not soccer (football).
We’re here with the two women from the hotel last night, and various new people. The owner here has red hair and welcomed us warmly. She and her husband spent a few years in Lebanon, where she learned about the nineteenth-century Lebanese saint, Charbel Makhlouf. This gîte is named in his honor.
Sunday, 25 May 2003. St. Palais. [Day 31]
We’re spending the night in a large Franciscan center, “Zabalik.” We are four in a large dormitory room; others are lodged elsewhere in the building. Our dinner was excellent: vegetable soup, a “tourte” (quiche) with eggplant and vegetables, green beans, an excellent salad (the cook said she adds a bit of sugar to the dressing), yogurt, and “galette des Landes.” Five Franciscans are based here. Their mission is to welcome people in need: pilgrims, students, and the homeless, in particular. I attended vespers at 6:30 p.m. before dinner at 7 p.m.
Rain throughout the day, off and on. When “on,” sometimes heavy. The attractive landscape consisted of green rolling hills, farms, some cows. We noted “palombieres” = tree houses for spotting birds. The final 9 km were on a regular asphalted road, however, which was tedious.
With the town of Aroue, we entered the Basque area. The Basque language is now very much in evidence, in signs for place names and posted announcements. The priest here says that 60% of the people in the two interior Basque provinces speak Basque, considerably fewer in the coastal province. Houses are distinctive, white, with shutters and trim painted brick red.
Caroline’s feet are holding up, and she has persuaded me that tomorrow we can make it to St. Jean Pied-de-Port, 30 km.
The two women from the hotel two nights ago (and last night in Navarrenx) are here, too. They have done the pilgrimage in Spain and offer encouragement. Also here is a man from Brittany, who is walking to Santiago and Fatima at a very fast pace, averaging 40 km per day. Last year he walked to Santiago. I asked him what inspired him to do the chemin a second time: “Les rencontres,” he said. [“Meeting people.”]
The weather tomorrow should be better, possibly quite warm.
Monday, 26 May 2003. St. Jean Pied-de-Port [Day 32]
Today we walked from St. Palais to St. Jean Pied-de-Port, 30 km. The weather was cloudy all day, but at least it didn’t rain. We passed by a chapel on a hilltop, which must have fabulous views on a clear day. Monique and Michele, the two women first met in Maslacq, took our pictures. Earlier in the day we passed the discoidal cross that marks the junction of three of the four traditional pilgrimage routes from France, from Tours, Vezelay, and Le Puy.
We had late morning coffee in Ostabat, an attractive town, and late afternoon coffee in St. Jean Le Vieux. In Ostabat we bought some local sheep’s milk cheese. The Basque area is lush, very green, and we saw lots of sheep. As far as I know, the Spanish Basque region is the same. When I was little, I remember being told of Basque sheepherders who had migrated to Nevada. I can’t imagine the shock those men must have experienced when they arrived in arid Nevada.
St. Jean Pied-de-Port (“St. John-at-the-foot-of-the-Pass”) is a bustling town and, as the starting off point for the climb over the Pyrenees, filled with the anxieties of pilgrims nervously awaiting that adventure. The pilgrimage route enters the old city through the stone “St. James Gate.”
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(photo from internet: www.lespyrenees.net)
As we approached this gate, after 32 days on the trail, I felt the emotion well up. I was going to stop and savor the moment, but just then a group of overexcited teenagers poured out of the gate, racing in our direction. We had a quick look and walked on. Contemplation was out of the question.
The night was spent at a private gîte, a traditional, multi-storeyed house attractively named “Sous les étoiles” [“Under the stars”]. Although the owner was welcoming and the architecture fascinating, I slept badly, anxious about the next day’s hike. The usual middle-of-the-night trip to the bathroom was long and complicated, and throughout the night I could hear every creak in the floorboards.
We ate dinner at the Café Ttipia. I had a “salade basque” and “saucisses confites” with French fries, and fruit salad. The meal was very good, but at ca. €17 per person (with wine), a bit pricey.
Tuesday, 27 May 2003. Roncevaux / Roncesvalles – Spain! [Day 33]
We are in what looks like a baronial hall, an outlying building in this large monastic complex. There must be 60-70 bunk beds here in this huge room. The frames are metal and squeak and squeal when people climb in and out. Toilets and showers are downstairs. The facility is modern, but the water is mostly cold. Cost: €5 per person. Lights will be turned out at 10 p.m, on again at 6 a.m. Everyone must be out by 8 a.m. – at which point Caroline and I will go for breakfast to a hotel here.
We ate dinner tonight at this same hotel; there is surprisingly little choice of restaurants, considering the large number of pilgrims here. For €7, we took the “pilgrim special” – cream of potato soup, trout and French fries, and yogurt, and red wine. This meal was not as ample or varied a dinner as we were used to in France.
We made it, the big climb to Roncevaux (Roncesvalles, in Spanish). The hike wasn’t as difficult as I feared.
After all, we are in good physical condition after one month on the trail, unlike pilgrims who begin in St. Jean. The weather was clear and sunny in the morning, coolish too, with good views.
Midday (and we were high up) clouds rolled in, views were blocked, and it became chilly. No rain, fortunately, but the foggy conditions were disorienting. We were in the mountains, the Pyrenees! But where, exactly?
After the summit, the fog dissipated and we walked down to Roncevaux via the steep path, not the gentler road recommended by the guidebook for people with bad knees. We might have taken the latter route had the signposts at the start clearly indicated where to go. Not that my knees have been giving me trouble, but any help is appreciated, especially at the end of the day. If conditions had been muddy, the steep path would have been tough going. But the day was dry and the trail through trees was attractive. We reached the monastery about 4:45 p.m., which allowed us time to attend Mass with a blessing of pilgrims in an ornate chapel before we went out for dinner.
So we’ve now done half the trip, and here we are in Spain, with different pilgrims and people, and different daily rhythms. It’s like starting another trip. This will take some getting used to.
Wednesday, 28 May 2003. Zubiri. [Day 34]
7:00 p.m. We have found beds in an “albergue” (Spanish for gîte or hostel) for pilgrims in a former school building (dated 1939-40) – two large rooms packed with bunk beds. WCs and showers (cold water only on the men’s side) are located between the rooms. The schoolyard has been taken over by laundry set out to dry. The hostel is basic, but the price is unbeatable: only €3.
The people staying here are much more ethnically mixed than in France. Spaniards have now appeared. French pilgrims are still represented but they form a smaller percentage. Others include Germans, Dutch, a sprinkling of Americans, and one young woman from New Zealand.
People are hanging around, having arrived early in the afternoon and finding there is nothing tempting to do or see in this little town. The distance from Roncesvalles is not far, only 22 km, and downhill. In Spain, hostels are mostly city-run, sometimes church-run, but unlike in France they don’t take reservations. It’s first come, first serve. We have been told that hikers feel compelled to leave early to secure a bed by the early afternoon. Indeed, this morning at the hostel at Roncesvalles, people were in motion by 5 am, and by 7:15 a.m. the place was largely empty, with Caroline and me among the stragglers. But we hadn’t figured out how to get breakfast. The hostel didn’t provide anything. Moreover, the dinner last night was insufficient. We really needed to eat and drink something before setting out. The hotel bar wasn’t yet open, so we had to wait. The breakfast we eventually got was kind of a shock: a thin “café con leche” (coffee with milk) and a choice of commercial packaged pastries and cake slices. That didn’t satisfy our hunger, so at 10 a.m. in Espinal, not far down the trail, we stopped for another round, this time for a heartier coffee and “tostada” (bread slices, and butter and honey), which kept us til lunch. Tomorrow, we’ll get up early, have a juice and pastry here, which we have bought in a market, then have coffee in the next town, 5 km away. We’ll see if this formula works.
The walk today was a great pleasure, on a good trail in very beautiful countryside, through forests and cleared field, sometimes with views. Clear sunny weather, almost hot. The air is much drier than in France. The picturesque towns of Burguete and Espinal, Basque villages, have attractive, well-kept white houses with shutters and other wooden trim painted red or green.
Thursday, 29 May 2003. Pamplona. [Day 35. In Spain, Full Day 2]
At the hostel this morning, starting at 6 AM, there was much commotion as people got up and prepared to leave. I found it impossible to sleep through the noise, or the shaking of the bunk bed in which I was on top. We had our juice and breakfast pastries and left at 7:30 a.m. I felt groggy walking without my morning coffee but eventually we reached the next town, Larrasoaña, where we stopped at a bar for coffee. Like the towns yesterday, Larrasoaña has beautiful, well-kept houses with attractive woodwork.
The countryside continues to be attractive with green farm fields, pastures, and trees. For a while we walked together with a Spanish/French-German couple, who live in Munich. We were seated next to them in the restaurant in St Jean Pied-de-Port.
Mid-afternoon we reached Pamplona, the capital of the province of Navarra, a real city with a population of 250,000, far bigger than any city we encountered in France. It took us at least an hour to walk from the edge of the Pamplonan suburbs into the city center.
The albergue was full, not a surprise because it’s small. In any case, I wanted to stay in a hotel, for a change, and we have found a room in the Hostal Dom Luis, located on San Nicolas Street in the first floor of the building. The price is €45. It’s very comfortable and a pleasure to have quiet (no snorers other than us) and hotel-supplied sheets and towels.
10:45 p.m. We had a very good dinner at a restaurant below the hotel: broccoli first, then I had rabbit, Caroline swordfish. Service didn’t begin until 9 p.m., though, in the traditional Spanish manner. I’m now very tired. I hope we will find meals served earlier, suiting our early-to-bed (normally), early-to-rise pilgrimage schedule.
Before dinner, we visited the magnificent cathedral and its cloister, both in the Gothic style, and the diocesan museum, and we sent e-mails from a good internet place.
Carl from New Jersey, first met in Éauze, is here at this hotel, and Caroline has now gone out for a walk with him, despite the late hour. His father (who is Dutch, it turns out) is still in Roncesvalles.
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