Day One. Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port > Roncevalles

Distance: 27km

Blisters (Ampoules): zero

Painful limbs (Parties du corps qui font mal): all. (Toutes)

Well, I apparently made it over the Pyrenees. By all standards, it was a strange day. 

Exhilarated by the beginning of the journey, I started off at SJPP at 8:30am. But I noticed that I was walking as if I was getting my morning baguette; there is nothing special about the way the Camino starts (then again, what was I expecting? Bright neons lighting the way like airport landing lines? Duh.) Still, it was so "normal" in fact that within minutes I asked a local if I was "on the right road". To this, he busted out laughing, asking me rightly, "It depends. The road to where? There are many roads here!" His work companion assured me that I was indeed on the right way to Santiago.

And with this encounter, my Camino started.

The first part is all on paved road, next to cars. Not pleasant but in the morning hours, there are only farmers going about their morning routine. About 2 hours into the walk, you enter "the Green Space." Your feet and legs thank the Camino for this soft green cushion on which you are now walking. And they should be happy! A steep climb of 1200 meters (non-metric people, get your act together and get used to the idea: the world is metric!) over a distance of 20 kilometers gave these poor limbs their day's work-out.

A strange day also because between not feeling your legs or feeling them to much, your mind starts to wander. It wanders so much in fact that you end up in the strangest places at the strangest times. And for a minute, or ten, you completely forget what you are doing or where you are (or where you are going for that matter). Which would be ok if your legs didn't tell you "time to stop" and the Camino markers responded "not a chance!" So on you go, up you go, up, up, and up again. 

Then around 8 km before you arrive (this is 19 km post-departure (about 6 hours walk), by virtue of (real) food depravation (beef jerky, countless almonds and 3 KIND bars hardly qualify as a meal, no matter how you look at it.), your mind starts to play tricks on you. Like a mirage in the desert, you start smelling melted chocolate to make a mousse. Then you picture yourself at a supermarket picking up a can of cassoulet (of all things!) Then you really think you've lost it. 

But again, on you go. One foot in front of the other. However slowly, regardless of the many stops you take (even one nap!), slowly, you get closer.

And you make it.

Everything else, the pictures will show: beautiful landscapes, all kinds of animals enjoying the pastures (cows with bells, sheep with bells, even horses with bells!)

Moments where you stop and you get so lost in the landscape, you simply don't move and you think that you could in fact stay here for a while, lost in the middle of nowhere. With just the mind floating with the clouds that you could almost touch, up there on the mountain.

But somehow, you get up, or maybe it's the chilling Pyrenean wind telling you "time to go" and you start walking again.

On, and up, and on, then down, and on.

Then you make it.

And you're happy.