Day 1, Friday, August 23rd, 2019: St Jean Pied de Port to the Refuge Orisson
One would not think that a short first day of five or so miles would be that hard, right? WRONG! It was a very tough first day. That is because until you walk uphill pretty much constantly for 3 hours through an elevation change of 2000 feet, you really can’t describe how much something like that really hurts! Well, now we know!
We started out around 7am and made it to the Refuge Orisson around 10:30 am. Met some fascinating people along the route. Nance from northern Ireland was doing a week on the Camino with her son and husband, as that was all the time they had. When we arrive Orisson, we met Linda from Florida who was waiting on her two friends, Patty and Diane, to finish as she decided to cab it to Orrison to keep from hurting her back. They finally arrived and all three shared stories about why they were walking The Camino. Diane had been joined by a young man, Chris, from Germany, who helped her make it all the way up to Orisson.
After a few beers and plenty of water, we were shown to our dorms. There were six in our room, three couples, each assigned a bunk bed per. I hadn’t slept in a top bunk since I was a Cadet!
The Pilgrim dinner was 7:30 sharp and we made two new friends in Carlos and Michelle from London, Ontario Canada. Carlos was such a great raconteur and we had an enjoyable fellowship with soup, wine, bread, more wine, roast chicken and roast vegetables. A tradition at Orisson is to have each pilgrim introduce themselves, tell where they are from, and why they are walking The Camino. There were 58 people from 18 different countries and we were humbled to hear the varied and very personal reasons for each one’s Camino.
After witnessing a beautiful sunset, and taking time to say my rosary to thank God for the tremendous opportunity to be here on The Camino, we were off to a well earned rest.
Terri’s ready to go!
Sunrise over St Jean Pied de Porte on our first Camino day.
First choice of the day…up the hill we go!
The vistas were stunning!
Not lovin the climb, but doing it nonetheless.
Terri toughing it out
We made it! …and these were our happy faces!
The Refuge Orisson
