We got up at 6am Saturday and ate breakfast at the albergue as we watched our new friends eat and make there way out the door to start their camino. In our excitement we felt left behind, but we still had to find a box to ship our stuff to Santiago for the end of our journey. So at 7 in the morning we went to the stores in town to see what we could find. Betsy in her usual way of getting things done found a box in a book store so we hurried back to the albergue to pack it, still hoping that if we hadn't lost too much time we might start hiking a day early. At 8:45 we talked the owner of the albergue into taking our package to the post office so off we went starting our camino about 1 3/4 hours later than optimal. The first day takes us over the Pyrenees mountains and is one of the longest & hardest hikes and here we are starting at 8:45 ... we didn't care because we were too excited. For my friends in IBM and especially the PMs, starting a day ahead of plan had special appeal to the project mgr inside of me :-).
The day proved to be long, hard and spectacular. We made it to Roncesvalles by 6:20 pm so it took us over 9 hours! To put that in perspective, one of our new friends we met in SJPP, Tina from Holland is a genuine walking machine. She started walking 3 months ago from her home and she made it from SJPP to Roncesvalles in 5.5 hours! I can not describe the challenge of the vertical steepness of the climb and carrying 26 pounds on my back did not add to the pleasure. The temperature was about 80 but with a cool breeze and very little humidity, unlike NC. We made the first vertical climb in the expected 3 hours but it wore us out and then anticipated next 5 hours turned into 6.5 ... but the experience was worth it. Camera pictures can not capture the beauty of it all but I tried any way and posted a few below. The albergue in Roncesvalles was very nice with a lot of pilgrims staying. Our "room" had 39 single beds with 2 to a cubical.
 |
| marker for "the way" |
 |
| the path & view leading to the top |
 |
| nearing the top of the path across the mountains |
 |
| sheep grazing just like in the movie |
 |
| Betsy on the road |
 |
| at the top of the Pyrenees mountains |
 |
| more views as we climb |
A special note to Mary, Mark, Janet and Jim ... our hike in the NC mountains trained us well in an unexpected way. There were cows, goats and horses all over the mountains and as we had to do in NC, we had to watch carefully for all of the droppings on the paths!
Today God showed us the true beauty he put in the world. People from multiple nationalities were all very nice (Italians seem to be the most popular), the weather was spectacular and the views breath taking. Day 1 was truly blessed.
 |
| our bunk room for the night |
