Day One May 14, and 15, St. Jean to Orisson

Arrival in St Jean Pied de Port (SJPDP), France first day to Orisson, France

Miles Traveled: 5

Miles to go: 483.7

May 14, My flight from Dublin was uneventful and the arranged transportation found me along with 6 others all going to SJPDP I met Ann and Sean from Dublin and we talked about out preparations and schedule. They had all their lodging booked and a very aggressive 32 day plan. Later we would have dinner together in SJPDP. After an hour drive (harrowing drive!) on narrow switchback roads up to SJPDP we were dropped in the is beautiful quaint French village at the base of the Pyrenees at 200m. The driver pointed the way to the Pilgrim office and I walked the steep streets to check in and get my Credential. To travel the Camino as a Pilgrim you must have a Credential, a passport if you will, that is stamped along the whole route at each place you stop. You cannot enter the albergues or buy a pilgrim meal without the Credential.

I was fortunate to have arrived before the train into town which later carried close to 100 people who waited in the 75 degree heat for nearly an hour to check in. The office attendees provide very helpful advice about the first few days walk. I was in and out quickly with all my information and found the albergue I had booked months ago just up the street. I checked in with Alan who spoke little English but he patiently mimed how everything worked and showed me to my 4 bed room. Later a French man, Etem, and a Korean farther and son would join me as room mates.

I quickly learn that a it is important to have a routine as I needed to get a number of things done, laundry in the sink and hung out back to dry, explore the town and eat, shower, organize my pack for tomorrow, find the post office to send my carry on bag to Santiago and get some rest.

All the packing and re packing of my bag I had done at home thinking it was organized was a joke. It has taken about 3 days now to get the right items in the right bags so that at the end of the day I can use my limited time efficiently.

May 15,

I was up at 7:30 for breakfast, late because I needed to hang round town to mail my bag. I met one gentleman (who spoke no English) and a couple from Great Britian who explained that he had already walked 750k from Le Puy in France and was heading to Santiago as well, a total of 1000 miles. The English couple had walked for 10 days and then turned around and walked back. They were flying home in the PM.

I checked out later and headed to the post office. Fortunately I had taken a roll of saran wrap from home as I was required to wrap the whole suitcase wheels and all in the warp in order to ship the pack. That done I was ready to start out about 9:30.

Nothing I had read prepared me for my first 8K out of SJPDP. Most people are up and walking by 6:30 to beat the heat of the day. This day was especially hot pushing 75 to 80 and I had missed the coolness of early morning long ago. The route itself was a climb of 200m to 850m in 8k on mostly road way. It was hot and steep. There were times I pushed close to my max heart rate and needed to stop to rest and drink water. I knew that the next day I needed to walk 18k over the top of the mountains to get to Roncesvalles and if it were like this I didn’t think I could do it. Thinking of the person I was walking for that day and just focusing on one foot in front of the other finally got me to Orisson. I was so greatful that I decided to break the first day up into two sections as many people walk past Orisson to Roncesvalles a total of 26K. I don’t know how they did it!

Orisson was everything I had hoped for. Spectacular views from their deck and nice accomidations. I had lunch and waited for check in seeing Sean and Ann again who were finishing lunch and walking on to Roncesvalles. I congratulated them and wished them luck.

My room mates for the night were Santi, James and Chris. Santi had done 8 Caminos and was very helpful in getting me settled. There was no WIFI here (we were told to talk to each other. A novel idea in today’s world.) so the afternoon was spent doing the days laundry, sleeping and talking with the other 50 or so people staying there. At supper I sat with James, Carol and June. Carol and June were sister in laws who often took trips together. James, 62, was Vietnamese but grew up in Australia retired from IT for 20 years and basically travels the world. Dinner conversation was spent telling our stories of why and how we got to this place. A tradition a Orisson is that after supper each person stands gives their name, where they are from and why they decided to walk the Camino. Of the 50 at this first dinner sitting there were people from all over the world ranging from just graduated students, a mother with her two sons who just graduated, old, young, travling together or alone and all for different reasons. A very diverse group of people may with very touching reasons they were walking. When Chris gave his reason for walking everyone laughed when he said he is walking the Camino so his kids (who had recently moved out on their own) could now worry about where he was for a change.

With another night of very little sleep I was up at 6:30 to pack and have breakfast at 7. After, as we were filling our water bottles I asked James if he wanted to walk together for a while and he agreed. At 7:30 we began our walk having been told that there was a short steep stretch in the beginning and then it was all a gradual assent from 850m to 1450m but over 12k this time.

PS – Loading pictures is not working due to the poor WIFI speeds (or no WIFI) in the albergues. I am a few days behind as I write this from Pamplona where I scheduled a zero day to see the city and rest. I am finding that I can post pictures to Facebook much easier. If you would like to see the pictures along with an occasional pithy comment please friend me at Jim Holdman and you can see the pics there. Thanks for understanding.