06/13/06 PAMPLOMA-2

I must admit that I was really excited the next morning as I walked towards the start of the Napoleon route over the Pyrenees. This route is the same which Napoleon took which in those days was fairly well traveled already by shepherds and pilgrims. Well, it was steep and fortunately I had a reservation at the Orisson Gite which is 7.9 km up the mountain. Well, again, it was STEEP, like doing two or more Camelbacks one after the other with a backpack on. Fortunately it was cool. A bunch of Italians with little backpacks came out of a church and started with me but soon disappeared into the distance. I came across two germans from Hamburg, one happy as a clam about ready to break into a yodel while the other was sitting on the ground just down and out. They had just started and I have to say that anyone who started their first day going up the Pyrenees has my total admiration. Well, I sort of question their sanity, but they like I had no real understanding of the task here. Anyway by 1:30 to 2 most everyone who was staying at Orisson was there and it was 'the sound of music, or Heidi' in real living color! Farm houses down in the valleys white dots of sheep moving around, mist wafting around the peaks. Quite something. A real hard thunder storm cleared the air to perfection. Good dinner and I went to bed in a lower bunk which is really quite important to me as I am continually trying to hydrate myself day and night so I have to pee at least 3 times a night and sometimes more often. Climbing down to do that is not a pleasant experience! Next morning a good breakfast and then for the Spanish border. The weather was absolutely clear as a bell and the scenery was great. I passed the down and out German who had learned his pace and was slowly making it up the grade which was very steep but not as bad as the day before even though it was lots longer. (I am actually at this moment listening in the background to 'The dawning of the age of Aquarius'! I think that I am in a time warp.) When I got to the Roland´s spring close to the top and just a few meters from the Spanish border there was the German´s friend on the verge of yodeling. THEN TO SPAIN!!!, up a little more and then DOWN; DOWN at an increadable steep angle. Very hard on the knees, especially the right one. Then past Roncesvalles to Burguete. (For THE BOOK GROUP: I stayed in Hotel Burguete where, I learned at breakfast, Earnest Hemingway wrote much of 'The sun also rises´. They have kept the downstairs just like it was when he was there and described it in the book. I have not done this yet, but if you go to www.hotelburguete.com you might be able to see it.) The next day, June 12 I ran into a Gordon Lindsay from Walnut Creek east of Berkely hobbling along. Boy did he look rough! He asked me if I was going to stay at the Gite, now called a 'Albergue', the same but much larger with more beds in one room and I fear no more toilets. I told him NO, I was staying at the hotel-restaurant Akerreta, just past Larrasoaña. Oh, did he want to stay there also so I wipped out the cell phone which he did not have and we got him in. I took off and after drinking a liter of cold water was about to go back and take his pack for him but he hobbled up to the door looking really rough. He is, I think, a little older than I and started just at the Pyrenees. He stayed also the day before me at Orisson but collapsed on the down grade and had to lay down in the middle of the path. The next person who came along called someone and by the time the people got there to help him he had been able to get up and try to go on, but the helpers took his pack, put him on a stretcher and got him down to the Albergue in Roncesvalles. He took a rest day and is hobbling along. He says his wife worries too much and his daughter thinks that he is crazy. But, like me, he thinks it is now or never so he presses on. We were able to talk a fair amount that evening and that was really nice. I have found the isolation really hard to deal with and it brings to focus how the isolation I felt when I first went to Germany in 1960 and during the time I was there, as I never really got so that I could have a truly probing intellectual discussion in German, affected me actually for all the years since then. The next day on to Pamplona where Mary had found a hotel for me for two nights; finally after 20 days of walking I am taking a rest day. I have the problem of my boots wearing quickly and I can´t make up my mind whether to try to buy some new walking shoes, or not. I would still have to carry the boots which are heavy for insurance and I am not sure I want the extra weight. But on the other hand my right foot might start hurting badly, it has started to hurt ocassionally already, and I really don´t want that since generally I am holding up fairly well.
I have learned that I am not cut out to sleep in the same room with many people. That might have been OK when I was 21-22 and we slept with 5 in the room but at 68 it has absolutely NO appeal. So I am trying to plan the trip so I can stay in hotels, and the like where I can have a room to myself. I don´t want to have to walk down the hall to the bathroom but that is Ok if necessary. So, I am off to look at shoes. If I have the energy I will post a little blog about people and politics before I hit the road again tomorrow morning.