AlBarclay

Charlemagne only suffered one military defeat. It was in 778. I walked through the site today. The man was an extraordinary genius but he rashly decided almost offhand to raze the walls of Pamplona after a successful campaign elsewhere helping allies. Pamplona was the Basque capital and he thought they were in bed with the Moors. Perhaps it would save him some time later.

As he was returning through the passes I passed through today, the Basques fell on him. They isolated his rearguard and baggage train. Commander of the rearguard was Roland of the Breton Marches. He and his men must have fought extremely hard and well before they were massacred to a man. They lasted long enough for the king to get himself and the rest of the army out before they were chased. Nobody knows how Roland died or what happened exactly as there are no Basque records surviving. There aren’t even any records to tell us exactly who commanded them but we can speculate.

Roland and his doomed Paladins eventually became extremely potent romantic models of mortal heroism – the blueprint for the round table and all that shit. Angry Roland. Orlando Furioso. Dying to protect his king.

Walking up this morning it was almost entirely fog.

If I walked past a good bit for an ambush I didn’t see it. They would’ve made mincemeat of me, those angry Basques. Apparently there was a statue of Mary and a spectacular view and all sorts. Probably some more crosses. They like crosses. Wet fog. That’s what I saw. I was soaked to the skin by hiking pretty much entirely inside a cloud all day.

I left super early as all the internet people were making noise about how hard it would be on the mountain. It was miserable and wet and reminded me of The Isle of Man. But it was basically just a mountain pass. And we were inhaling drinking water. We walked up it. Lots of us walked up it. Lots of people walk up it every day. Especially in midsummer. People run up it. It’s a steep day’s walk with a load of exaggerating self aggrandising pimps writing about it afterwards. “Look at me I did a thing.” I was glad of the two cold Spaniards selling 2 euro instant coffee out of the back of a van. I was glad of the fact the clouds finally broke on the Spanish side and I met a horse.

I was glad to get over it. And myself in the process.

Now I’m in Spain. And I’m in a ridiculously expensive hotel room. The only option in Roncesvalles was a huge hostel, and I got an email from my agent when I was in that cloud. I had to record a self-tape audition. So all my plans of rest went out the window and I walked a bit further to Burguetz looking for a room. But I don’t speak the language. I can’t be an ally. They can charge what they want by just repeating a number. So pow, there goes €60 for bed and breakfast. That wasn’t the cheapest offer I had but the other woman was such a bitch I paid €9 not to stay at hers. It’ll be another €10 for a meal here too. That can’t continue. I’ll be home in a week broke. Still, worth it if I land the job. The eternal mantra. It’s a pretty village though, Burguetz. A river runs through it. It is contained down the Main Street on both sides of the road, in front of the houses, flowing swift.

Now almost 6 hours after I stopped walking, I’m still waiting for the fucking videos to upload. It’s nice that I can audition from Spain. But God it’s still so time consuming, and in this case (and often) it’s expensive. I had to buy a peaceful room of my own, record the other parts with gaps and then play the audio track and film myself. No way I could do that satisfactorily in a hostel where all the Americans are shouting at each other and there’s nowhere to sit and chill without someone asking you if they can put something somewhere.

I’m glad I’m in Spain. I can blitz some duolingo now to make myself a bit less shit at Spanish. I’d forgotten how much people dislike you if you can’t express basic things. And I hate being the guy who has to drag people into another language to do simple stuff. I can’t even count in Spanish today. My head is full of French, ordering and locking in the huge colloquial learns of the last week, en effet.

That and watching the upload bar on fucking WeTransfer. I’ll never get to bed at this rate. But I’m glad I’m in Spain. I’ve crossed the border. I’ve done the hardest day of walking on this trail and thought it easy, and I’ve immediately turned my focus to my craft and banged out a good self-tape (if not clean shaven – no razor. No shops.) All in all, that’s a good day.

From St-Jean-Pied-de-Porte, realistically speaking, it is 34 days hard march to Santiago di Compostela. The hardest walk by far will be tomorrow when I ascend to Roncesvalles. The weather, to an extent, is on my side though. It’s colder than it has been. The rain has blown in. Treacherous footing, but less sweat.

This is my only day off. I’m spending it in Pilgrim Central. Literally St Jean at the Foot of the Pass. It’s been strategically important enough over the years to have been contested frequently, and razed to the ground at least once by Richard I on his crusades. The economy revolves around pilgrims. €10 blister plasters compete with €70 silk sleeping bag liners for the “Seriously?” prize. If you’re going on a pilgrimage, stock up beforehand or they will take you for everything you’re worth. A lot of people here have a stick and a bag, although there’s also loads of pink around today for a breast cancer run with only women running. I’m wearing my pink shirt in solidarity.

I’m finding it hard to have a day off. Everything in me wants to walk. I’m learning to do what I need though, and to take care of myself. Today I will rest despite not wanting to. I can spend the time obsessing about the contents of my pack.

I’ve only done a week, but I’ve got a pretty good handle on equipment now. I’ve chucked loads and this is what’s left. I’ll put it here for people considering doing this madness.

I walk in a trail hat borrowed from my cousin. It keeps the sun off my head and out of my eyes. I adore my trousers that convert to shorts. I’ve got a spare pair that don’t convert and I only wear them when the others are filthy. One stick so I have the other hand free for arse scratching, orange peeling, compass bothering etc. 4 pairs of socks, 4 pairs of pants. Arnica cream and compeed and padded bandages and some other basic first aid (antiseptic wipes, sting wipes). Vitamin pills. Lighter. A pocket knife. Two T-Shirts, two sleeved shirts. A light towel. A small container of laundry detergent. A hankie for the early morning drip. Sleeping bag and liner – haven’t used the liner yet. Also haven’t used thermals and kagoule and rain poncho but I don’t regret it as I reckon I will. Mobile phone with a battery charging case so you can plug in both phone and charger to the same socket. Plug adaptor. Thai fisherman trousers, sarong and espadrilles to make it perfectly clear I’m a hippy in the evenings (actually chosen for lack of weight). An amethyst. To give the lie to the last comment. Also a gong, incense, a liturgy of Nichiren Buddhism and some beads. And my tarot cards. Fight me. Soap. Sudocrem for the chafing. Tiger Balm so I can forget to wash my hands and go to the loo – (never again, especially before bed.) Sunblock – factor 50 – a thing I rarely if ever use but I’m needing it up here. WATER FLASK or I’d be dead. Compass for those “Where the fuck am I?” moments when GPS goes whoopsie and decides you’re in Germany (aka all the time). Super light fleecy top – ( I’m wearing it now. Love it.) Big light scarf – (tablecloth/neck warmer). Fitbit. It’s a brilliant luxury. It wakes me with a silent alarm in the crowded auberges. It vibrates happily when I hit fifteen miles, to tell me I’m doing well as that’s around when it starts to hurt now. It monitors heart rate and sleep patterns. It tells the time. It’s a small light.

Toothbrush and toothpaste. A drybag you can attach to the outside of your rucksack with your lunch. Ziplock freezer bags so the six day old reblochon doesn’t get all over the inside of the dry bag. Lunch is usually a mixture of moisture carriers, proteins and bread. I think a great deal about how much things weigh. I always have an orange though for emergencies. And of course a gargantuan tin vessel of holy water collected by my teenage mother that everyone looks at strangely because I can’t close my pack around it. And my uncle’s tarnished rosary. They’re the catholics here.

I’ve been on the road less traveled and I’ve found adequate laundry facilities to keep my clothes fresh. I’ve never had to re-wear socks or pants. From here on it’ll get more crowded but there’s an economy and an infrastructure coming into play. There’ll be launderettes. Expensive but in existence.

I’ve been planning my route extremely carefully to make sure I stop at the cheap auberges. That’s the best way. Ideally the gîtes paroissales run by the church, even if I write “NMHRK” in all the guest books. If I wasn’t doing that I’d be spending a minimum of €30 per night which would murder me. After Asson I now phone ahead in the morning, or the night before. Usually it’s not necessary but I don’t want to get stuck on the porch again.

Accommodation cost has varied from €6 to €30. So has what is offered for the price. You take what you get. The Curé and his cat wanted 6 for a bed and two meals  The farmhouse with double bed to me alone was 30 for the same. My ideal is 10 per night plus 10 for evening meal (If I’m not just stuffing cheese and ham again.) That’s what I get in the gîte paroissale here in St Jean, with all I can eat dinner, red wine and robust breakfast in an extremely clean environment. No bed bugs here for sure. I’ve got their bites on my stomach and my wrist from L’Hôpital Sainte-Blaise.

With 34 nights left we’re looking at a minimum €680 not counting coffee/lunch/luxuries. It’s not cheap being a pilgrim. But I’d pay a lot more for a life coach, a therapist, a personal trainer and a grief counselor. So it’s probably worth it.

I’m in St-Jean-Pied-de-Porte at last. This town is the official beginning to most people’s pilgrimage to Santiago. It’s crowded. I’m really not used to seeing this many people. I found a launderette and now I’m getting a beer while I wait for the clothes to turn. The last two days have been deeply moving, reconnecting with nature. Today in particular. Off into the dark, trusting ancient wisdom that the dawn will actually break as it always has. Immediately up a mountain, before the heat makes it too hard. I’m carrying everything I need but I have to husband my thirst, understand my hunger, stop when I must. I know a lot more about how my body works already. The hill was hard, but the light had only just hit me as I triumphed the summit. I timed it well. But I had to be rude and leave before the breakfast they’d prepared. I’m learning.

There are vultures here in Basque country. Loads of them. Eagles too, piercing the air with their shrieks. Kites. I was above some of them, and some of them were above me. Seven vultures, turning and turning in a widening gyre over my head. They must have seen me staggering over the hill and it got their hopes up. They weren’t wrong. Once again I drank too much water at the start of the day and now I might run out.

I passed a cleared area, weirdly with a mailbox, containing nothing but sun bleached sheep carcasses. I have no idea who would post them letters.

That was about half eleven when I was just noticing I’d had more than half my water, and my crown of vultures was closing in on me. Seeing exposed ribcages was enough to push my pace up again, and it did until I couldn’t find the bloody route.

From time to time the path gets lost. The markers get moved or eradicated or destroyed. Particularly on private land, where someone is thinking “Bloody foreign bloody pilgrims coming over here with their foreign diseases and their foreign ways, worrying our livestock and most of them don’t even speak Basque. AND they’re all mumbo jumbo with some bollocks religious claptrap. Show me a God you can feed to a cow. That’s what I say. Bloody foreign pilgrim bastards.” Because that’s exactly what they say. Have you been here? Well then.

So I was on what might have been private land, and there’s probably an ancient right of passage law, but the markers had all been blitzed. Trees chopped down or burnt, stones dug out… No way of telling the recommended route. All four routes roughly West. I could have just used Google Maps and been the puck in a game of car hockey. Round here Google maps walks you on main roads. I decided not to.

Instead I stood exhausted and with dwindling water contemplating four potential routes around the side of a big mountain, vultures expectantly wheeling overhead. Two paths to my right and uphill. Two to my left and downhill. No fucking clue. I wanted to go downhill because it had been up a lot. No X on any of them, which can be a useful way of initiating some sort of process of elimination. Just gorse and fern and four tiny tracks and someone’s had all the signs. I didn’t know what to do. But I’ve been in nature every day now for a week. And I’m a bit of a hippy as you might have gleaned. I decided to follow the butterflies. They were blowing past my legs. I’d had to stop a few times so as not to step on them. They were blowing through the clear patch directly ahead of me and into the shelter of one of the four beginning paths. Marie, my early saviour, had a butterfly tattoo on her right shoulder. Butterflies are lucky on this trip, I’ve decided.

Three butterflies in a row went down second from the left, so I followed, resigned to being lost now, uncaring, relieved that at least they went downhill. Five minutes later there was a route marker on a stone. Hooray! I was shocked. Butterflies showed me the right way.

I can see now how superstitions and stories develop and grow. Butterflies are my guidance on this route. That is both a beautiful truth and complete rubbish. And maybe that’s ok. “Follow the butterflies, pilgrim.” So long as the butterflies don’t tell you to burn everybody who goes down the “wrong” path. Suivez les papillons!

I awake in Mauleon-Licharre and strike out into the dawn. The binmen are working and wish me a good day as I plod dustily by their truck. Christian, the soldier, has left half an hour before the dawn. The two old ladies Anne and Christiane leave with me, but they’re taking a short cut down the main road. It’ll save a few hours for them. I’m going over the hill though.

As I’m leaving town I run into a proper old Frenchman, beret and all, everything but the onions. He is dragging an ancient dog. He sees me and drags it towards me as he beckons. The dog’s foot gets caught in a drain. It shouts in pain. “Attention au chien!” I suggest but he wants to talk to me. He just tells me the route. I thank him profusely and gesture to the dog which is in pain. I go to help just as it frees itself with a yelp. I head on my way, sorry for it. The binman says in an undertone “Last week he stepped on its foot.”

The first few hours are temperate and I eat up the miles, going at a blistering pace. I stop for a coffee in a little café in Ordiarp and they’re playing Clandestino by Manu Chao, one of my go-to stupid summer albums. I take it as a good omen. As the day heats up I head for the hills, and boy does it heat up. At noon I find myself at the base of a hill with no cover. At one I’m at the top and I’m dripping sweat. I collapse into the first shade I find, and slowly, thoughtfully, eat an orange. Without any shadow of a doubt it’s the best orange I’ve ever eaten. If I was a mad king I’d make it the Duke of Orange. I was low on water so chose the orange as a substitute to give me power. Because then it was time to push on for another hour and a half without enough water through glorious heat.

My relationship with food is changing. In my lunch bag I have about 10 cherry tomatoes, 2 slices of lettuce, cheeses and bread, and half a brown avocado. I don’t make a sandwich. Too hungry. I just eat them with my hands, methodically and completely, tasting as they go, enjoying the hydration and the nutrition. I wrap the remaining cheese and bread and get back on the road.

At about 4 there’s a farmer, shouting to his dogs. I shout to him and ask if he has a tap. He does. He takes me there and I overindulge in water. I leave with a brimming flask, at a good pace, and almost immediately say out loud to myself “Water is amazing stuff.”

It’s the simple things. I’m one day away from St Jean Pied de Porte – the traditional start of the route. This evening I’m staying in a farmhouse with a double bed behind a door I can close. I had a hot bath, and then massaged all my pain spots with arnica oil before rubbing Tiger Balm into the spasmy bits.

I’ve worked out where the phrase “blistering pace” comes from. But blisters? Meh. Nick’s grown a new head but I’m keeping him contained. Careful grown up blisters aren’t like the teenage blisters we remember. My feet can’t be any worse than that old man’s dog’s. It’s all part of the journey… (Screw you with your platitudes.)

Last night I get into the tiny room at the auberge and sit arranging my stuff carefully at the base of one of the 4 bunks. Eight of us are sleeping in a room no bigger than a kidney. In the bed to my right, his arm about 4 foot from my sleeping neck, is the soldier. He has a knife next to him. Not like my pocket knife. You could gut a horse with it. By day he walks in full camo, with a camo rucksack that weighs a ton. He’s completely bald and covered in tats. He carries a six foot wooden staff like Gandalf. He walks the Camino up and down repenting for whatever he successfully and inevitably did to the baddies back in the day. He could be one of those many people that would be a serial killer if he hadn’t found God. As I sit on the bunk he looks at me – piercing dark eyes. “La Camino” he says. “Beaucoup d’amour, beaucoup des surprises, beaucoup des voitures.” I mishear his first phrase. It’s an ancient poetic mishearing based slightly on bad grammar. “Beaucoup de mort” is what I hear. Love and death are very close in French. Lots of death. Lots of surprise death! I don’t want surprise death, crazy eyed bald camo guy!!!

He’s actually a lovely guy, Christian. Extremely self contained which is good as I’m doing the same when I can. It’s rare he talks to anyone. He observed me for ages before he spoke, and I felt the sting of his disapproval as I got swept into social talky stuff last night. It wasn’t even a conversation. It was a sound-game. One speak two speak three speak all laugh. Repeat. I got out quickly.

Yeah. I’m not liking people at the moment mostly. Certainly people who aren’t considering things. I got annoyed at the young couple for only drinking mineral water. I got annoyed that they are the first English speakers, through no fault of their own. I regretted that I showed them I spoke English as then they could natter at me. I might pretend to be Hungarian with basic English from now on until I get busted. I’m fractious, basically. I can’t rest easily in close proximity to that many people. I throw out socially until I’m done, then recharge behind a closed door. There was only one loo in the gite so I couldn’t even sit in there. I had nowhere to relax in the evening as I struggle to relax in company. I just hated them all quietly and efficiently, was terribly pleasant to their faces, slept terribly and woke up in the morning covered in bites.

I left at dawn, saying farewell to the beautiful Unesco church at L’Hôpital Sainte-Blaise.

Early start turned out to be a fantastic idea. The first couple of hours were cool and then the clouds burnt through into a roasting heat. Even though it was a short day I was fucked when I arrived at Mauleon. But the views were astonishing on the way.

I decided to take a photo of every single trail marking, which I’ll put up somewhere when I have the time. I did it to train myself not to miss them. But I didn’t realise it would be such a day and such views. God it was glorious. If only my body didn’t hurt so much I’d be in heaven. Although as Marie said, “If it was easy, there’d be no point.”

There were two phone numbers offering rest for pilgrims in Mauleon-Licharre. The Alberge, and a private house a kilometre from the centre. They were the same price, so I called the private house. Apart from the soldier I was first into town. “Do you have any pilgrims staying?” I asked. “No.” “Wonderful. I’d like to stay.” And i went to chez Mme M. Big house, lively host, and nobody else staying – ensuite shower and breakfast. All for €10 with my credencial. Bargain. “Good old Catholics”, I find myself thinking. “Let’s leave all the burning in the past where it happened.” We talk for ages. I tell her about last night. How thrilled I am to have a place of my own. I need time alone to recuperate. I can’t handle another auberge. I’m so glad to find a room with a door I can close. “Trente cinq” she replies.

She wants €35 Euro. We stand and look at each other. “That’s too much,” I tell her, genuinely shocked after my heart was sold. She’s intractable. I show her my printout from a week ago. “€10 nuit + petit dej.” “No longer,” she says.

So I have to go to the auberge. And now she wants to take €5 for her trouble. I remain courteous. “Let me make a phone call.” She nods and goes out into her garden. I make a phone call and have a huge stinking poo in her loo. I give her her five smiling and head back to the auberge. “Good Camino” she says as I leave. “Goodbye,” I reply. We both mean “Rot in hell.”

Now I’m in the auberge with the soldier and the two elderly ladies. I’m off to do some shopping. I’m going to have to learn to hold my space with strangers. Dormitories. I have hated them since I was 8.

“There are two other pilgrims, young. They speak English but no French. They are leaving soon. Maybe you will wait for them?” Says the volunteer running the Relais de Bastet in Oloron, where I’ve been staying. He’s a good guy, but Jesus Christ man talk slower! I get about a third of his content, but he’s an enthusiast so it’s more or less all I need. “No thanks, I want to be all alone.” I reply. And I shoulder my pack. The two elderly ladies clock me shouldering. They shoulder too. I say farewell to Marie – I’ll miss her – and leave with the dawn like a soldier going to war against blisters. They are hot on my heels.

I’m not in a hurry though. I’ve got my feet to think about. This is a marathon not a SCREW YOU WITH YOUR PLATITUDES. I stop for a coffee almost immediately and watch the ladies pass. Then I hit the road as the sun starts to warm the world up. And it’s a good day. The miles slough off. I took the insole out of one of my shoes. I only needed it for the right foot but foolishly thought it would be better in both. One foot is bigger than the other. Hence Nick the blister. I’ve called him Nick. Name of a little cut and name of the devil. He’s shrunk, Nick, but others are coming now. My babysoft “that fucker never worked a day in his life” feet? Say night night boys.

Ages ago I mentioned to a friend that I wanted to do this walk. She had done it. “Get a wooden cross necklace. People treat you better.” That was her advice. “All the rest of the stuff? Just pack well and It’ll look after itself.”

I packed well. I didn’t wear the cross. But I’ve noticed people looking questioningly at my amethyst. Perhaps it’s a bit too much of an in your face choice to wear it where there might be a cross. A lot of the cheap accommodation is entirely religiously motivated and given charitably, and even though I have a spiritual purpose in this pilgrimage, it’s my mum who is getting time off purgatory. Still, nobody has been weird about it. The Curé d’Arudy looked at me like I was a talking banana when I told him I was an actor but he didn’t seem to mind the stone. He’s a nice old stick despite the OCD.

Anyway I digress. I made good time. Got here at about half 3. The pilgrim routes can sometimes wind hugely over hill and down dale. On the way I met a cyclist coming the opposite direction. “You’re ok.” he says somewhat cryptically. “There are only two more. Just in front of you.” Arriving at L’Hôpital I discovered why people were in such a rush this morning and why the cyclist said what he said. There are only 8 beds here and nothing else for ages. I wouldn’t want to rock up here and find it full. It’s the off season and they’re all taken, and there’s literally nothing for miles.

And okay, maybe platitudes and bon mots aren’t all bad. People leave things by the path. I usually like them. There’s this:

“Don’t run away. Go back to yourself. Your truth lies in your heart.” (Yaddayadda not exact, patriarchy etc etc) But I spent a good part of today contemplating good old Augustine’s thought. Particularly when my hand reached for my phone.

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I’ve ended up inevitably connecting with my fellow pilgrims here, because there are eight of us in a tiny room. I’m gonna try to slink off with the dawn again though as I’m not on fucking holiday. It’s a short day tomorrow. I might try to yomp further. Although this is Basque country now. Nice to take it slow and take it in.

I come downstairs in the morning to find The Curé of Arudy drinking tea from a glass bowl. He has a morcel of bread that he is dipping into the tea. He dips. He sips. Tiago, his cat, paws at the window. Behind her, dawn breaks over the mountains. Joan Baez plays Ave Maria. “What madness is this,” I think, regarding the bread dipped in tea. Marie appears shortly afterwards, and immediately dips bread in tea. WTF? Suddenly I’m the odd one out. I say nothing. I have coffee. And bread. Separately. Shortly afterwards the cat jumps into my lap. “She knows you have a cat,” says the Curé, but no. Even when I was clueless about cats they’d jump me. I stink of something they like. Dead animal, probably.

We strike out into burgeoning light. First we have to walk down a huge bastard road full of trucks for about 3 miles. It’s hell. People do the honking thing to rebuke us. Eventually we’re back on the route. It’s sunny today and mild. The day very quickly becomes about the blister though. It’s growing, despite my efforts. We stop a few times to try and change the way it’s dressed but things eventually just come down to mind over matter. It will hurt. It will get worse. I will do everything in my power to help it get better and eradicate the root of it. Eventually I’ll have a callus instead of a blister. So long as it doesn’t get infected in which case game on!

A dog finds us somewhere outside of Buziet and gets a whiff of the curate’s cat. He is ducking down and low growling, bumping his nose against my calf, and i realise that there could be far worse things than a blister. Like rabies. He doesn’t bite us though. We march on, making good time towards Oloron. It’s Marie’s last night on the trail. Her family awaits. She’s been brilliant as a companion.

Neither of us are here to make friends. But we are the right two people to share this portion of the journey. Tomorrow it’s likely I’ll be alone again, which I’m happy about as I’m not in a rush. I am going to leave early and watch that fucking blister. It’ll just be me versus me all the way to L’Hôpital Sainte Blaise, unless I call it early – which I could as the day after is only 19km on the recommended schedule. Better look after this fucker as there’s no point stopping myself through stubbornness.

The guys in the Jacquaire are very friendly but they’ve given away all the information sheets describing the journey. I have to rely on the route markers. Marie, indignant on my behalf, say “haven’t you got a photocopier?” The guys who run the auberge are volunteers though.

Earlier today we paused on The Devil’s Bridge. We took some photos. I found myself thinking about the devil and my credencial number. 663. So the devil is three people behind me, hot on my heels like that dog. I’d better keep going all the way to Santiago. I’m not in the best shape to fight the devil yet, but in another month I can turn round and lamp him one, if I can only keep going until then.

I’m in bed now. She’s asleep. I need to be. Dawn is 7.30. I’ve already bought breakfast and lunch. All my laundry is done. Let’s Go! Blister and me are gonna take on the mountains.

I wake up in the Alberge in Asson. My saviour from last night slept well, she tells me, even if she had the radiator on full to dry her washed socks which made me restless.
While I’m brushing my teeth, Madame Loupy manifests herself – she of the refusing to answer the phone. She does exist! She wants money so it’s worth her while showing up now. She momentarily shows surprise when I emerge from the bathroom, but she masks it. She has no change. She is not in the least interested in acknowledging that she has had 6 missed calls and a message from me. She just wants money and us the fuck out of her alberge. It’s an interesting first hospitality experience on this journey. I steel myself for a month and a half of Madame Loupys.
We leave, and stop at the pharmacy. Marie (for so she is called) is not happy. Breakfast is supposed to be included. “I don’t know what was wrong with her,” she says. I’m relieved. “I thought perhaps they were always like that.” “No no. She is unusual.” Well that’s a relief at least.
The local pharmacist gives us tea, brilliantly, after Marie pleads with her. We sit on two seats in her shop, while she serves customers, sipping our Green Tea with 2 sugars. Marie insists on the sugar, for the trail. She saved my body last night, and now I’ve seen her get tea from a pharmacist. I trust her.

We head off. She’s better at this than I am. She walks long distance all the time. She has two kids, 11 and 13 and she can only spend a short amount of time away, but she loves walking and she is going as far as Oloron. I’ve got her for one more day. She teaches me the sign system. It’s easy to miss. I wish I’d known it yesterday. This one means “You’re going the right way.”

And this one, that I passed so many times yesterday, means “No Al No you Idiot what the hell are you thinking?” (the one in the middle. This is bad for three different routes. Often it’s good for them but bad for us.)

There’s turn right and turn left as well. Mostly it’s pretty clear if you know what to look for.
We still get lost. We end up about an hour north of bed, totally uninformed in the wreckage of a recent fire that completely ravaged the signage. I get my compass into play, and Google maps, and we make it to the Alberge in Arudy tired again after about 18 miles mostly uphill. I have a suspicion that Marie deliberately got us lost because she wanted a longer walk. Her Camino is over soon so she wants to get the most out of it. We were almost there at half 3 but she said she didn’t want to walk down a Departmental (A road). So we walked for ages into a mountainous wood to try to avoid the D road before we hit the fire patch and acknowledged we were lost. We eventually ended up limping in from the other side of Arudy on the same road, hours later.

Still it was beautiful. But I have a small blister now in the back of my left heel. I was hoping that would take a bit longer to develop one of those. Damn my babysoft feet. I’ve smothered it with compeed. Let’s see how that develops.
Dinner is with Pierre, the Curé of Arudy. He collects pilgrims. There’s a visitor’s book and a map of the world with pins. He feeds us dinner and tells long stories about cats and God, and other pilgrims. I loosely follow it but at 8pm I need to get some alone time, and time away from constant translation and difficult communication. Marie is great because she demands nothing socially. We just walk, and talk only when we feel like it. Pierre is less patient. “It’s like the story of the duck,” he says to me at one point, hard eyed, soliciting response. “You know?” I shrug. “Perhaps” I say gesturing for him to continue. He looks pissed off and starts quacking and repeating the word “canard!”. Eventually he just outs with “duck”. It’s the only English word he utters. To translate something I understood anyway. I’m tired.
We do the dishes together and now I’m up here, in this ancient bedroom full of empty beds, in my sleeping bag because if there are no bedbugs here I’ll eat my hat. It’s nice being in the off season. We both have our own dormitory. But it also means the little buggers will be hungry tonight. But it’s only 6 euro. We are going to give him 10.

Jean Paul and his wife run the Jacquaire Information Centre in Lourdes. They are located slap bang in the middle of tourist central. Lourdes is a Mecca (pardon my french) of religious tourism. Shop after shop sells bottles for you to fill with holy water, devotional tat, candles, incense, rosaries. The Info Centre has wide open doors and Jean Paul is full of energy and positivity. He gives me my credencial, and it seems I’m the 663rd pilgrim to start here this year. Three away from a much more appropriate number. The credencial is like a passport for pilgrims allowing us to sleep in various priories etc along the way, run by the faithful.

I walk to the basilica and the grotto in Lourdes to fill up on holy water, and I immediately give myself a fat lip removing my pack, butting my mouth into the top of my walking pole. Newbie error. First injury. Minor. My lip is bleeding. I fill my flask with holy water and drink some to swill my mouth. That’ll fix it. Gets all the holiness right into my blood stream. Holier than thou I finally hit the road. The first Saint statue I pass is Margaret of Scotland. Dad would be proud. Off I go. To my right the river. Behind and to my right a soaring amplified male voice singing in Latin. Beautiful.

There are a couple of reasons why I’m glad I started in France. First it’s not at all crowded on the trail so I get a lot of alone time. Second I can speak French acceptably. I’m shit in Spanish. I’m learning this pilgrimming as i go along, and I have made the schoolboy error of not packing a lunch today. I’ve got nothing at all to consume except for holy water. Coming from London I expect a shop on every corner. Where’s Ryanair to sell me that Kinder Bueno now? There are no shops here, or they’re closed for Sunday if there are any.

By lunchtime I’m starving. I’ve filled my pockets with chestnuts and I can make fire so I won’t actually starve. But I’d sooner find a more elegant solution as making fire will waste time I don’t really have.

I end up in in Rieulhes, a tiny village West of Lourdes. Blessing my French I talk to two women who are thrilled to find a hungry pilgrim. We are sufficiently rare here, it seems. I am brought into a drinks evening for St Michel, the patron saint of the village. It was his day yesterday. I’m offered beer but I really don’t want it. A teenage girl is despatched to make me a ham sandwich. She adds an apple and a nectarine. I take them with huge haltingly expressed gratitude and make my way to a brook where i crash out and eat them watching the water.

The course of the day has taken me through French countryside, rolling hills, pastures and – for a short while – deep  a wood. I get lost in it on purpose looking for mushrooms and then lost confidence. I run into two German pilgrims heading to Lourdes. They were in Santiago a week ago but took a train. There’s a lot of that going on.

As evening falls though, my energy begins to fail despite the sandwich. I start to crave a recharge and a rest. I eventually make it to Asson as the sun starts to fade, and I’m limping again with tiredness and foot pain. Seeing the sign for Asson is like finding the holy grail.

Shot with adrenaline I work up one last hill and get to the auberge. It’s a priory backing onto a church and it’s completely dark and closed. And Madame Loupy is not answering her phone. To me or any of the locals I find.

At least it gives me time to write. But after two hours gradually getting stiffer in the cold I resign myself. This is miserable. It’s half eight and dark. My body hurts. Thankfully there’s a little place that’s open for food. But I’m gonna be sleeping outdoors on my first night it seems. Shape of things to come? I hope not.

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I made a little nest in the doorway of this Catholic priory and disconsolately chanted Daimoku. Literally just as I finished I heard a shutter overhead. I hobbled out of the porch on my hurting feet to explain the situation, once again praising my French teachers despite the fact they were mostly assholes.

There’s a bunk in her room. She only needs half of it. She rang ahead, in the morning. That’s what you’re supposed to do. Not just show up half dissolved in the evening.

I didn’t know this, plus didn’t know if I’d make it this far, plus I wanted to avoid using my phone to ring local numbers as it’ll cost the earth. She is totally cool about me bunking up with her. I drag my bag up her stairs, sit on the floor in her shower, talk with her a little about feet, get shown her missing toenails with the rest optimistically painted red – “I pulled that one out.” – and significantly improve my vocabulary.  Then I pass out after giving myself a foot massage. I’ve gone the whole day without speaking a word of English.

Miles: 21

Total Pilgrim Count: 3

In front of me at security coming off the plane in Lourdes, a young Australian woman starts talking about Camino. Her name is Matilda. She’s full of beans. She plans on doing it in stages over time. Walk, fly back to London, do some work, fly to where she left off, carry on until finally she gets to Santiago. Auspicious that she’s there in front of me. She’s getting the train to St Jean before she starts though. It’ll take me more than a week to get there on foot by the look of things.

We say goodbye and I go to the baggage reclaim. My rucksack has made it. But it’s wet. I open it. The order of things has changed. It’s been inspected. And someone has taken the stopper off my deceased mum’s sixty year old holy water to check it’s not a bomb. I’m walking the water out to Santiago – what’s left of it. They haven’t put the cork back properly. There is still some water in the flask, but the bulk of it is now soaked into my clothing. A little impromptu blessing for the trail gear, perhaps. I take that as a lesson that nothing is sacred, and I head into town. They don’t sell flasks like this tin one now. It’s all plastic. I don’t buy one. Leaky tin flask is just a little extra difficulty.

In 1858 – not so long ago really – a young woman called Bernadette Soubirous followed that great French canonical tradition of hearing voices. Unlike Joan of Arc, she wasn’t told how to beat the English. She was directed by The Holy Virgin Mary herself to a spring of water. Holy water that heals the sick. It was immediately scientifically analysed and found to contain nothing out of the ordinary. But it still has a great reputation for healing. Science be damned. Faith can move mountains, or at the very least it can change your attitude to them. I fill my drinking flask with the stuff. Then I go for a stroll.

Up the hill nearby, big gold Romans persecute Jesus in an elaborate series of stations of the cross. Groups of devotees follow monks bearing crosses, and are devotional in Latin at each stop. I’ve realised I don’t know the call and response here so I just go “mumphy mumphy mumphy” and cross myself like my mother taught me. She’s with me, her big flask, mercifully a bit lighter for the spillage but still a heavy burden. I light some expensive candles for her, for my uncle Peter and for my grandpa – all Catholics. Then, with all the holy water swimming in my veins I make a somewhat rash decision. I’m gonna keep walking until I hit fifteen miles. Even though I’m sleeping here in Lourdes. In a circle. Pointlessly. Let’s find out how this is going to be, I think.

It’s going to be HARD guys. I’m lying on my back in the Airbnb and my feet hate me. I booked a luxury stay for the first night and I’m glad of it. Hot bath. Rubbed sudocrem into my tootsies. I’m gonna find out a lot about my feet in the next month. And my shoulders. I might actually HAVE some shoulders when I’m finished here. But the little things I have today ache. After just one day I’m feeling it. I warmed down nicely but I didn’t warm up. I feel a daily routine coming on if I’m going to minimise damage to myself. I’ve got a lot of ground to cover…

Break it up into stages though and it seems smaller. Tomorrow I’ll walk to Asson. A little bit north and a long way west. About 14 miles but I’ve got the whole day. And I’ll remember to bring lunch so I don’t get to Asson starving and unwilling to walk anywhere further for food. That cost me two taxi fares this evening, to find a cheap bowl of pasta and a glass of table wine. You live and learn.

Before I leave though I’ll unpack my whole bag and seriously establish if there’s anything I can dump from my packing. Bits of packaging. Unnecessary clothing like that smart shirt  Anything. I need to lose as much weight as I can without losing practicality.