Still wringing the rain out of my laptop as I write tonight. What a crazy, fun day. The trail over the Pyrenees is 15.5 miles—14 of those uphill! It’s harder than climbing out of the Grand Canyon. Whew. Much greener though.
We laughed, what else can you do, as we were soaked by heavy rains before we even left St. Jean. It rained so hard that even our raincoats were penetrated. We were wet to the core. The hailstorm, thunder and lightening were interesting twists on the day. Fortunately, the trek is difficult so it kept us warm!
The Pyrenees are lush with pastures and trees. We saw a few herds of sheep and three mountain goats. No idea how they can stand up on the steep mountains. It felt like we were tipping over and we were on a path! Not too many pictures today as we couldn’t take our cameras out much in the heavy rain.
As we cross over into Spain we start to see more of the traditional Camino signs like these. For the first time in three years we didn’t get lost on day 1 of the hike! Not holding my breath that we can maintain this status…
This small chapel at the crest of the mountain trail is where everyone falls to their knees and thanks God that they made it—and that there is only one mile left to go and it’s finally downhill! You think I’m joking…you’ve never climbed the Pyrenees. Haha.
We met an interesting Father/Son duo today from Virginia Beach, Brian and Joey. Joey just graduated from UVA and they are taking this trip together before he starts his new career in Chicago. They asked if every day is this difficult, they looked really worried. Jeff told them this was one of the easiest hiking day of the trip... I told them the truth. He tried to tell them the Grand Canyon joke, but it appeared that they had already suffered enough for one day so I saved them. Interestingly, we've already met more Americans on this trip than the other two combined. A lady from Wisconsin with her daughter from South Carolina, and four folks from Tucson--we don't think the Tucson crew were hikers though.
Tomorrow we are off to Zubiri a short 13-mile jaunt with only two hills. We are prepping better for the rain—probably kidding ourselves!
