Day one - St Jean Pied de Port to Roncesvalles

 

Saturday May 21

At 7am sharp we were off. It couldn't have worked out better. Departure times are dependent on breakfast scheduling and last night's accommodation at Hotel Izaxulo was perfect. It was made very clear that breakfast was 6.30am to 7am and then we all had to bugger off - and so we did.

I was very tentative about the hamstring damaged at Heathrow airport on Tuesday. A bruise has started to emerge and any over-excited strides forward on that leg bring me up short, so we got off to a gentle start.

Our first Camino encounter came early when a small American woman (who later turned out to be called Pam) asked if we spoke English. "Only just", I replied. She thought I was joking. I do have a slight grasp of American English, so we were able to communicate.

She had been intending to do the whole Camino with a friend, but the friend was a vaccine resister, so couldn't travel. Her children had got a bit spooked, with visions of her lifeless body somewhere on the Pyrenees, so she was only going to walk to Logrono, a week or so. As well, on the first day she was only going to walk the 8k uphill to Orrison, then get a taxi back to St Jean. Tomorrow she'll taxi back to Orrison and walk across the hill to Roncesvalles - the Valley of the Thorns.

We weren't bothering with half measures, so off we went to Roncesvalles.

The whole route is steeped in history. Here's a quote from Wikipedia:

The Battle of Roncevaux Pass (French and English spelling, Roncesvalles in Spanish, Orreaga in Basque) in 778 saw a large force of Basques ambush a part of Charlemagne's army in Roncevaux Pass, a high mountain pass in the Pyrenees on the present border between France and Spain, after his invasion of the Iberian Peninsula.

The Basque attack was a retaliation for Charlemagne's destruction of the city walls of their capital, Pamplona. As the Franks retreated across the Pyrenees back to Francia, the rearguard of Frankish lords was cut off, stood its ground, and was wiped out.

Among those killed in the battle was Roland, a Frankish commander. His death elevated him and the paladins, the foremost warriors of Charlemagne's court, into legend, becoming the quintessential role model for knights and also greatly influencing the code of chivalry in the Middle Ages. There are numerous written works about the battle, some of which change and exaggerate events. The battle is recounted in the 11th century The Song of Roland, the oldest surviving major work of French literature, and in Orlando Furioso, one of the most celebrated works of Italian literature. Modern adaptations of the battle include books, plays, works of fiction, and monuments in the Pyrenees.

Today, the journey is known as the Napolean Route. Here's another internet steal:

The route is thus named because of its strategic importance during the Napoleonic wars and it is the route Napoleon took to cross into Spain following the old Roman road the Via Triana. It was also used as a route through the Pyrenees by Emperor Charlemagne.

The Route Napoléon is the route that pilgrims have used for several centuries primarily because of its lack of trees and other places where bandits could hide, unlike the heavily wooded route through Valcarlos. This is one of the toughest parts of the whole Camino Frances as for most of the first few kilometres you will be climbing up into the mountains and the first 2 kilometres are particularly hard.

So how did we do? We were treading in the footsteps of some serious figures from history.

In the words of the Mother Goose Nursery Rhyme, it was a misty moisty morning, when cloudy was the weather. There wasn't a breath of wind, and the temperature was pretty high. We were just dressed in shorts and T-shirts and we walked through clouds of mist. Visibility was in limited supply. 

The road reared up alarmingly from the start. During the day I did some mental computations and figured that we walked up an average slope of 7 percent for more than 20km. As any cyclist will know, that's hard yakka. Given that many sections flattened out a bit, our climb of more than 1300m over 21km was a bit of a slog.

So, there we were, hobbling (in my case) onwards and upwards, greeting a few other pilgrims as we went. Which ones would become our friends, which ones would we never see again? That's the nature of this walk.

At about 6km (nearing 9am), the sun started to make its presence felt as an eerie light through the mist and then suddenly the cloud cleared away. There was the mist, caught in bowls of ridges and hills, with walkers eerily appearing at random, only to vanish again in the swirling fog.

We made it to Orrison in good time, surprised by the new structure providing a deck on which to sip our espresso and ponder the meaning of life. The little wooden toilet, which was such a puzzle with its pitch dark interior three years ago has been equipped with the luxury of an electric light - useful for men wanting to know where to point themselves.

But this was just the beginning. It seems a landmark, and for many people it's all they plan to do on day one, but eight kilometres isn't so much for such intrepid walkers as us. It's barely a third of the way.

If the first section was tranquil, what we walked into was anything but. The wind started to rise and having begun, it just kept on rising, and rising and rising. we had a serious discussion about the Beaufort Scale. As the wind rose, we first had trouble hearing each other. Later we abandoned conversation and concentrated on just keeping our feet. At times, forward motion was almost impossible. There was a stage when the wind coming from the left was blasting portions of my brain out of my right ear. I stopped and leaned forward, comfortably resting on the soft bosom of the hurricane.

Eventually, we swung into the lee of the mountain into a forest area - a blessed relief. We sunk into a soft bank and ingested the soft rolls filled with Basque ham and cheese and felt smug. This was the pilgrim test - there is no reward without adversity and we'd prepared thoroughly and long. We knew we were going to be ok.

And so we were. We crested the summit after something like 21km and took the long and gentle route down the final 5km into Roncesvalles (with an understanding that such adjectives are relative).

We arrived after nearly nine hours - a true test and one we're proud of. I'm writing this in the luxury of our dignified and slightly ancient Posada de Roncesvalles. We've inhaled a few beers, washed our clothes and we await dinner - coming up soon. 

The monastery at Roncesvalles

Tomorrow another long walk of about 27km to Akeretta, but without the altitude.

Here's a link to the day's photos: https://photos.app.goo.gl/L6vC6eTqMB4bZX1L8

Here's a Relive video. https://www.relive.cc/view/vLqekoxgMdO

Unfortunately my watch ran out of battery about 1km from the monastery at Roncesvalles.