Follow The Yellow Brick Road
Where to begin?Alec et moi sommes allés à la plage, la mer... c'était de toute beauté. le lendemain il m'a reconduit à St-Jean-Pied de Port, près de la frontière Espagnol.
J'y suis restée à coucher et le lendemain... I started walking.
Ok, I hate hills. Everyone knows this. I wasn't sure what to expect on this walk, what I was going to have to do... the first 4 hours of walking... no actually, the whole 8 hours of walking was uphill.
I hate hills, so you can imagine the disdain I have for the freaking Pyrenees!!!! Oh Pyrenees, you know you're gorgeous, but you're so very very annoying! I thought I was going to die.
The sun was a hot )35 degrees celcius) and not a cloud in the sky. There was not a tree in sight at 2pm when the sun is at its strongest so i found some shade under a rock, near a dry ditch. My water was nearing empty and there weren't many pilgrims on the route. I checked the map and it mentionned a fountain near a cross.
Mentionned where, but not how far. So I keep walking, walking walking, and finally empty my bottle, nearing some cars that may be able to give me something to drink. "Désolé, on vient de la finir, notre eau."
I was gonna cry. I walked away with a "pas de problème" and sat in a spot in the shade behind these concrete semi-square that seem like look-out points used perhaps in the war?
The cars all leave and I am alone, trying to find something drinkable in my backpack, wondering, "is saline solution drinkable? it doesn't say poisonous on the bottle..." when i see a pilgrim in the distance, walking my way.
Slowly walking towards me, I found out later that she was hoping I wouldn't speak to her, cuz she was in that kind of mood. But for water I begged and she hadn't touched hers in hours, so she had a lot.
She heard my "québec" accent and was happy to hear a familiar sound. She chatted with me a bit and I began to walk with her. Caroline encouraged me to keep walking, up and down the hills.
Let me just say that going down is very painful on the knees and toes -- i was eager to get to destination.
For the next two days we walked together, from Roncesvalles to Zubiri to Pamplona. And in Pamplona she stayed with me an extra night as I played tourist. She left today as I wait for my laundry... she was really great, I was sad to see her go without me.
Bonne chance à toi, Caroline de Victoriaville.
I keep walking again tonight, to the next small town 5km away to sleep in a hostel. It was nice to lay my head in a hotel last night.
I mentionned I'm hating the hostels, right? Caroline and I invented a song that goes... "Y ronfle y pète y pue sur le chemin de compostelle..." I couldn't handle the snoring anymore, I had to get a good nights sleep.
Anyway, I have to go get my laundry and do a few groceries for tonight and tomorrow. I sent some things ahead to Compostella so I don't have to carry so much, but I may send more.
I don't know when I'll be able to write again -- big cities are few and far between.
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