13-05-2018
Walked 23.6 km, 6 hours 1 minute
Ascent: 388 meters
Descend: 299 meters
Kilometers to be traveled: 895.2
Good morning Jean, it is 7 o’clock when I wake up. Now I no longer know if Jean woke me up when he got up, or if I had already woken up myself. The night was not bad at least. First of all do the personal care, then put on the clothes for today, put away the sleeping things and pack the backpack again. What do I have with me and does it still fit in? Yes, it works and my shoes are nice and dry too. The newspapers that I put in feel damp, so it still contained a lot of moisture, without being aware of it.
Jean indicates that he is walking to Arudy today, will leave around 9 am. When I go out the door, I see that it is again the blessings from above that welcome me on my 2nd day of hiking. I cross over to the place where Valeria would sleep. She is ready for it, she is waiting for me. Whether I already know where I will spend the night … I tell her where Jean is staying and that it’s a good idea. She checks the blog site of a Korean who also ran the camino earlier this year and sees a positive response there.
We start the hiking day, I have taken my French route description again, loaded the correct GPX, we can, or not? No, but first put on the rain protection, because it rains a little harder, waiting is not an option because the forecasts are unfavorable. On to breakfast, the pizzeria of yesterday is open and now has the function of a small boulangerie. There I score some chocolate croissants and a packet of orange juice. And now search for the white / red characters to be able to follow the path.
I show her what to follow in case she loses me. The white / red signs on the posts indicate the route, you have to keep looking carefully, because you will only find them at intersections of roads and paths. You will also find the signs there if you do not have to take that road, but if you do not pay attention, you will walk past it, which also happens more or less immediately. So I added the GPX again and checked what the road is. After 10 minutes everything is clear again and the smartphone can be put away again.
The route goes over paths and roads, still relatively flat. After an hour it gets dry and even some sun comes out, but the clouds don’t look promising. The snow peaks of the Pyrenees can also be seen in the distance. And the threatening clouds that seem to crash against it. And then we suddenly see a scallop on a yellow sign with Piedmont written underneath. Chemin de Hourtane is there, which I think is just a street name sign. We are in any case on the official Jacobspad. Did I expect otherwise? Not really, because we follow the white / red signs well. But what a good feeling it gives you when you see a confirmation of your route. My follower also finds it a good sign and trusts that we are on the right track.
To make sure that we can sleep and eat tonight, we call the priest to inform us that we want a place to sleep, if there are any. Yes there are enough places, we also want to eat, because he has to take it into account for groceries. By the way, it is preparing the food together in the parsonage. Nice idea, yes we also eat with us. It is still dry around noon and we take a seat to eat something. I had my crackers and banana that I still had with me. Continue after dinner, down the path, up the hill, cross the road again etc etc etc….
The dry period has ended and it starts raining again. We meet Jean, who now catches up with a good pace. Just a short conversation and he is through again. Rain is gone for a while, but will be back soon. We walk on a fairly wide street, slowly rolling through the landscape. And then another path through a forest. It varies considerably and that makes it beautiful. Everything is discovering, you are not familiar with it and you pay extra attention not to go wrong.
At a certain moment we walk down the road again, downhill and a car arrives. He stops with us and opens a window. Whether we are pilgrims? Yes we are. Are we Valeria and Paul? Yes, another point. He is Brother Pierre, where we are headed. He is now on his way to a village where he has to do mass. Unfortunately he doesn’t speak English and he tries to explain what we should do when we arrive in Arudy. He handed over the key somewhere, where we can pick it up and enter the parsonage. He will be home again around 7, then we will cook together and then of course eat.
The rain water falls down considerably again when it drives on and we continue walking. It would be another 45 minutes, according to Pierre. So we walk further down. We arrive at Arudy, I quickly take the picture with TJ on the edge of the village. In the distance we hear a lot of cheers and other sounds. A match is going on in the stadium, I just don’t know which sport, soccer or rugby, I still don’t know. And the rain only gets worse. We walk further into the village, there is no place to hide and there are no white / red markings. So we have to continue on the written paper, via GPX or Google Maps.
But the rain makes me decide not to use my smartphone. It is indeed in a plastic rain cover, but we must be able to find it that way. We walk on and in one way or another we slowly come close to the parsonage. Is not that difficult, you just walk towards the church and if you are lucky there is only 1 church in a village. We finally arrive at the right place, the parsonage. But where could we get the key again? He had given us an address and we must now look for it. Fortunately it is getting dry and we can see on Maps where we should be for the key, as long as we find the right house number. Not so.
Just walk to the church, there is also a kind of restaurant / bar that is open. Do we get more information with our French? We can talk with hands and feet, but we don’t get smarter from them…. They send us back to the parsonage, we check with the church to see if there is any information, but no.
Back to the parsonage and see what’s on the paper, thanks to Google Translate, or despite translate, we get some more information, but it’s not clear. Somewhere near the church there would be a staircase to a door that can be opened and where a key should be. Lovely, a village where you don’t have to close doors and find keys for other houses. But unfortunately, we don’t get much wiser anyway …
Then we see Jean approaching. Huh? He had caught up with us, how come he arrives after us? He also reads the information and goes after the key. We try to find that house number one more time. Then we hear Jean calling, he has a key and we can finally enter the parsonage. Take off shoes, these are dirty and wet and dirty and very wet. A little exploration in the parsonage, the ground floor is freely accessible and soon we have found the space where we will sleep. There are already 3 beds ready. We organize them, that is, we make our choice and everyone will arrange their affairs.
Now that I have a bed again, I send a message home that I have arranged my place to sleep again. Take a rest and prepare the bed. See where I can take a shower later and now do the laundry first. It’s raining again, but luckily we are inside. The laundry must be done outside. There is a sink with soap and ripple board. My first was this camino.
It must happen anyway
because otherwise it will grieve …
I can’t keep walking around with unwashed clothes for 9 weeks. When the washing is done and I wrung it as well as possible, it should dry, but how? There is a sort of centrifuge in the toilet cubicle, I also get it talking. After drying, hang up before drying. Part of the laundry, which I think is the hardest to dry, I hang over the heating, luckily it is on. The other things on a clothesline and now hope that everything will be dry before we leave tomorrow. We also shower outside, no, not outside.
The shower can only be reached through the garden. The water is warm, but the space is cold. As long as we don’t get caught up. So, call home now and report. It is still fairly early and while enjoying a self-made cup of coffee I start working on my blog / vlog. If we can finish this on time, we can take it easy. Around 7 o’clock Brother Pierre comes back and together we can start making our evening meal. Jean is our interpreter. We go to the first floor where Pierre lives and where the kitchen is. We all receive various assignments.
A black and white cat sits on the windowsill of the dining room. He is sitting outside his window behind the window. He responds to beating, gives cups. He gets food and turns around again. We continue to make the food. It becomes soup with baguette, salad potatoes and meat and as a dessert a cheese plate. Of course the wine is not missing. After dinner follows the registration and stamping and the donativo. He tells how this refugio started. He keeps track of everything and sees that the number is growing almost every year. He also tells about his booklet with stories about the cat he has.
And then comes the time that it is time to go to sleep again. Just agree what time we have breakfast, preferably at 8 o’clock. And we all go to Oloron Saint Marie and from there to Saint Jean Pied de Port? Jean is not me and Valeria does not know. I tell them that I am going through the Somport, so to Oloron and then to the south. Valeria still doesn’t want to walk alone, because she also sometimes went the wrong way today. Can I still walk with you? No problem under the same conditions.
Pierre says that the weather is not getting any better, it will continue to rain for another week. He knows a route, has it also on paper, instead of walking via Oloron to Sarrance (2 days and about 50 km), walking directly from Arudy to Sarrance. This means 1 day less walking in the rain, but a day distance of more than 30 kilometers. I am interested in that. Fortunately, a previous pilgrim has translated his French-language route into English, so that I can follow it more or less. 1 day less in the rain and therefore 1 day less walking in France, one is positive, the other is a pity.
My decision is certain, if it continues to rain in the coming days, I want to walk 1 day less, but follow the route, albeit a little differently. 1 day less and about 10 kilometers less, should you be able to? The last 100 kilometers before Santiago are the most important. We go to our sleeping places and prepare for a cool night. I take another blanket from the pile, because it will be cold tonight and my linen bag is much too thin. The laundry is not yet dry, so turn on the heating and hope it will be dry tomorrow.
Everyone crawls into their sleeping bag and we go to sleep, it is indeed getting cool…. and it stays pretty quiet, no real snorers here.
Bon Nuit
Accommodation: Frere Pierre, rectory Arudy, Saint-Michel d’Ossau Photos / Video
