Day 13: Tiebas to Eunate

Marion
Had a bit of a lie in this morning until 6.30am as we only had a short walk to do today. There had been a storm during the night but was over by the morning. When we started walking it was very misty especialy over the mountains, so you could not see the tops of the windmills. It did not take long for the sun to begin burning off the mist and the tips of the windmills came peeping through and in no time at all we had sunshine and wonderful views. We mostly walked on very muddy slippery paths to Eunate. Eunate consists of a beautiful church very simple and a albergue. On the way we passed wheat fields, grape vines, olive groves and fields of sunflowers. Only saw one sunflower in bloom, it looked so yellow against all the green. We passed a cherry tree full of delicious cherries - stood drooling and Sylvia said No! No! No! The owner is probably relying on the fruit to make jam or to sell.
On the way we stopped at a village called Enériz, saw a local bakery and Val and I had a coffee and a tasty brown roll with cheese. Syl had some fruit, cheese with a hot choclate.
We arrived at Eunate at 11.00am and our albergue was only going to open at 4.oopm. Our boots were so full of mud and had become so heavy because of the muddy paths so the first thing we did was to wash our boots under the tap and put on our sandals. There was a lovely grass area so we put down our bed bug sheets and rested on the grass in the shade. It was extremely hot and the time dragged a bit, eventually at 3:45pm the albergue opened.
Jean our hospitalero was French - such a friendly chap. He showed us around his house and gave us all a glass of cool drink. He said that he had beenr unning the albergue and looking after the church for the last 3 years. We slept in a large room on mattresses on the floor (it was very comfortable). Jean said that he would be cooking supper for the pilgrims and we were to wash the dishes. After dinner he would take us into the church for a blessing.
At 8.oopm we sat down to a delicious 4 course meal - us 3 and another pilgrim. Just after we had finished washing the dishes another 2 French lady pilgrims arrived. So Jean took us all into the church, no lights were turned on, and we had our service with candle lights. We all had to read a verse and at the end he sang Ava Marie. It was all very beautiful. The 4 of us then went off to bed and Jean fed the other two pilgrims. Did not even hear them come into the room.

Val - Minister of Nutrition
An easy and short walk this morning although muddy - just as well for Marion and me. At the second village we managed to get coffee and Marion and I had a big cheese roll to try and make us feel human...egg and bacon would have been better. As you have gathered we are walking and staying in remote areas. The upside is that we are getting lots of clean, pure air, a suntan, very fit (hopefully losing weight) and very relaxed. As such upon my return, I expect you to say how wonderful I am looking and then whisper to each other "no way has she walked the Camino, she's had a nip and tuck!"
To give you an idea of just how remote some of the places are that we stay at, imagine after walking all day you come off the path to what was once a village, but all that is left are the ruins of a small castle and chapel. The houses are crumbling. The sign for the Alburgue points to the next corner and takes you through this 'ghost town' and then you find just one small building has been renovated. Here they have some beds, serve coffee and food and you have no option but to stay there...talk about a monopoly.
Then of course there is the delicate subject of bowel movements. It comes close to the English obsession with the weather. One says "I'm going to the bathroom they say"..we look knowingly and our looks say "go well", "good luck". When they return, the door opens and "yes, yes yes!"they say punching the air with their fist..."great" we say, green with envy. Walking along "How's it going?" "Been 3 days now" "Agh, Shame, perhaps tomorrow" For more on this subject we highly recommend the following reading "How to Shit in the Woods" by Katherine Spinks. Of course it doesn't help when you realise, as I did today that I have for the past 4 days been taking Immodium instead of my daily tablet!!!
As we climb the next path, there in the middle of fields is a tiny church "Ermita De Santa Maria de Eunate". There is little known about this Church and they have built an Albergue next door where we are hoping to stay. It doesn't open until later and we have 5 hours to wait. There is nothing to do but lie in the sweltering sun. Syl and Marion came here last time but it was closed so we are going to wait and see and if not we will have to walk to the next place.
A lovely man arrives and lets us in early, he is off loading lots of food which he has collected from Pamplona and he is going to cook for us tonight. For the next few hours he works hard in the kitchen but will not allow us to help him. He provides us with a superb meal of vegetable soup, decorated with cream and crouton, then a salad served with a "Croque Monsieur"(a french toasted cheese and ham sandwich - Jean is French). Then a vegetable risotto and finally a fresh fruit salad with a biscuit...on the biscuit he had cut a yellow 'Camino' arrow out of lemon peel. Only the pictures can really capture this lovely meal. We wash up and then he takes us over to see the Church. The next morning we come down to the best breakfast since we started. A beautifully laid table with cereal (first ever) real milk (first ever), herbal teas (first ever), coffee, breads, jams etc. etc. fresh walnuts and cherries. The walnuts are amazing and I managed to buy some to take home.

Sil
We left Tiebas with happy memories of kind and hospitable people. What we will remember of the paths to Eunate is mud, mud, and more mud. There are few places to stop and even those mentioned in the CSJ guide are merely hamlets with no facilities other than an occasional fountain. We stop at Eneriz for a breakfast - I have a nectarine, cheese and hot chocolate - delicious.
We are in Navarre and pass through more and more vineyards. Marion and I recall walking to Eunate from Pamplona along a treelined road. This time we approach through a woods along a very muddy track that hugs a hedge on one side. Finally we come upon the church basking in the sunshine. It is hot. Really, really hot.
I walk around the outside cloisters looking for signs in the stones to photograph. There are many - some familiar, some new ones. Eventually we put our heads under the tap, lay our bed bug sheets on the ground in the shade of cherry trees and doze off. People come and go. A few pilgrims look at the sign on the door ´Today we open at 16h00´and move on up the hill to Obanos 2km away. Tour buses arrive with smartly dressed groups all trying to get out of the sun. They sing inside the church and we enjoy the free concert.
I doze off but am awakened by someone singing Ave Maria in the church so beautifully that it sounds like an angel. I don´t want to disturb her so I just stay on the grass and listen. Eventually Jean, the resident hospitalero arrives, walks over to us to ask if we are staying , how many od us, and then disappears into the house. He will only let us in at 3:45 or 4pm he tells us. At 3:45 he beckons for us to come in.
¨My name is Jean´he tells us, ánd I have lived in this house since 2006. I live here and look after the church. I came here the first time in 2004 as a pilgrim and then took over the albergue in 2006.´
It is blissfully cool inside and he offers us a glass of fresh lemon juice which he has made himself. He shows us the bathroom and showers downstairs and then leads us upstairs to the bedroom. There is a pile of vynyl covered mattresses and softer mattresses which he starts laying out on the floor. In the cupboard are blankets and pillows. Christiane (a French pilgrims from Normandy) Val, Marion and I setlle down to showering, washing clothes and sorting out backpacks. I offer Val a massage to ease her Achilles and Marion offers Christiane a foot massage. ´I will miss you South Africans tomorrow´she says.
After a wonderful supper we all help to wash the dishes and then Jean invites us to an Oracion (blessing) in the church. We are each given a little glass holder with a candle and a sheet of paper with a reading for each person. He says a prayer and sings beautifully after which each pilgrim reads from the prayer sheets. It is a lovely way to end the day.
I take a few photos of the church in the sunset. "Who built it?" I wonder. "It is octangonal, like the church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. That is why some think that it was a Templar Church. Others think that it was a funery church. Sitting inside, looking at the simple but beautiful stonework, everything in miniature compared with larger churches of the same design, I fancy that it might have been built by a wealthy family for a beloved but lovesick daughter whose betrothed has gone off with the Crusaders to Jerusalem. It looks and feels like a church for a young woman.

Day 10 - Artieda to Sanguesa

Sil

You´ll remember that we lost 8 kms by walking down from San Juan de la Pena to Santa Cruz (which is not on the actual camino) and then to Santa Cilia. So, after breakfast we loaded our gear into the minibus taxi and the owner of the hostal drove us down the winding road with magnificent views of the Yesa dam to Ruesta. We passed a number of the pilgrims who we had dinner with last night and caught up with a couple who had continued to Ruesta yesterday. The few stone buildings in Ruesta were abandoned due to the planning of Yesa but now one or two of the derelict buildings are occupied and there is a very modern albergue in amongst the ruins -and nothing else that we could see. The path today was very easy - mostly along gravel or dirt. The first 7km went straight uphill all the way to the wide ´meseta´at the top. It was then a long, winding road through scrub land,similarto the moors in England with scrubby vegetation and very few trees. We stopped at the only village between Ruesta and Sanguesa - Undues de Leida - for a coffee and coke. From there the path dropped quite sharply and soon we were in the valley walking between wheat and barley fields. A few kms from Sanguesa we passed a large stone marker that marked our entrance into Navarre. The terrain softened, with no more stark, stony hills and weird gravel formations. As we entered Sanguesa we saw our first European stork and followed his flight as he-she swooped onto a next, one of many, on top of the church. We were led to the pilgrim albergue by a wizzened little man but when we climbed the stairs to the dormitory we found it fully occupied by old men! We think that it is a group that is starting from here as we have not seen them before and none of them had sunburn! We, on the other hand, look positively burnished with brown legs and arms and sunburned noses! We walked all the way through the long town and visited the information centre. There is a hostal across the river or the camping further down. We crossed the bridge to the hostal - the young man tells us it is 82 euro for a tree bed room. Val's feet are giving her hell and we were not prepared to cross the river bridge again to try to find beds on the other side of town so we took the room. At least we have our own bathroom and best of all a nice fluffy towel! Marion and I went back into town to look for Internet and a camera shop where I had my memory cards downloaded onto 2 CD´s. Later on we return to the calle Mayor and have a tapas dinner in the local bar. On the way back to the hostal we stop at an internet cafe and catch up with the blog and me with a few emails. The next two days will be shorter walks to Izco and to Monreal. We just hope we make it before the senior citizens´club get there!

Val - Minister of Nutrition

I am now resigned to the fact that I will not satisfy my culinary obsession on this trip and that's fine - there is much to enjoy and I've probably been a bit of a pain about food - the wine has been no problem at all, its certainly easier to get than coffee and food. In every village you can normally find a drinking fountain, Syl and Marion say in some they offer both water and wine on tap! And so I will perhaps expand on more of the basics of our trip to prepare any of you who might consider such a trip as walking the Camino.

WARNING: some readers may find parts offensive! If you are going to consider walking a Pilgrimage walk then I highly recommend you attend one of Syl's workshops which she holds in Durban. She is also a guest speaker at the Gauteng workshops. Syl is the convenor for the KZN branch of the Confraternity of St James of South Africa - the website is http://www.csjsa.co.za/.

Properly research your route so it meets your cultural, historical and culinary(!) expectations. You can walk many pilgrim routes in France, Portugal and Italy as well as Spain and other countries. Some are remote like this one and offer something equally unique. Some, like the Via Francegenia in Italy, you will have the opportunity on many occasions to end the day in a established village - usually a walled city, high on the hill where you can eat fine Italian food. Be be prepared because there are many days where you will walk without coming across any inhabitants throughout the day. The workshops equip you in many ways including a back packlist and equipment recommendations. I am walking (and have walked for up to 5 weeks) on the exact list Syl gave me, no more and no less and have not wanted for a thing. However, I am proud to say that I have influenced Syl's list - I insist on one little evening number just to get away from the trousers and t shirts and this can be a dress or top and skirt, one of those that can be rolled up tightly and must weigh next to nothing and of course can be worn with the current fashion statement footwear..."La Crocs". Be prepared to share dorms and ablutions with the opposite sex - the Germans in particular are at ease with nudity. Take dear Bernd for instance in Italy, we had just reached th4e top of the Great St Bernard Pass and it was indeed worthy of celebration so I decided to go to the local tavern and have a glass of wine and a local palte and phone Martin. By the time I got back to the Monastery where we were spending the night, the girls were fast asleep in the dorm. I grabbed my toiletries and went to the (unisex) ablution block. I have dreadful eyesight in the dark even though I wear contact lenses and the room was dimly lit. A man was standing at the basin and we acknowledged each other. I cleaned my teeth, took out my contacts (I have 20/20 vision close up without them) and immediately realise that he is stark naked! He is tatoed from his neck down, arms, hands, bum, legs to his ankles...he lkooks like he's wearing a patterned babygro! I make a hasty retreat and jump into my bunk fully clothed. Bernard befriends us and this is a girls holiday so we really don't want him tagging along for too much longer. We decided to tell him that Martin (my husband) is a very jealous man and very upset that we have a man walking with us. Syl gets the job of telling him.."but Syl" he says "you must not worry, I am Gay!" Then dear sweet Bernd oversteps the mark - he tells us what food to buy, how to cook it and drinks our wine. We part company the next day.

Lovely walk today just cross with my blisters...I walked 800km in Italy without one and instead of doing what I always do, I saw some gel heel pads and decided to buy them...they were too big and wrapped up around the base of my heels causing blisters. We have Compeed, excellent plasters so these will sort it out together with some lambs wool......we arrive in Sanguesa and Syl pointed out the European Storks on top of the Chapel where they have their nests - she has seen them all over Spain and some of their nests are huge and years old. Long walk around town to find our accommodation, we enter through the door and go upstairs, there are about 12 beds all very close to each other and full of middle plus aged men, there are 2 beds left ..we would not have stopped there anyway - we have shared dorms before but this one didn't feel right. We left and walked and walked until we came to a hostel that had room, it was more like a boutique hotel with a trendy little seating area and we had a room with OUR OWN shower AND toilet between us..but the cost per person was E27 as opposed to the usual E8 - E12..it was lovely. Whilst I tried to repair my feet (I bartered with Marion "you give me your spare lambs wool and I will carry your wine goblet!") Both Marion and Syl gave me their spare lambs wool for free!! Syl and Marion went on a recce to find a cameral shop to copy over her photos onto a CD and somewhere to eat as there are no facilities to cook here - when we arrived this afternoon everything was closed so have walked on half a slice of bread and an apple and starving! We cannot have breakfast in the morning because the hostel will only serve something at 0830am and too late for us. We have some leftover fruit and hopefully there will be a village with a shop on our way. Syl and Marion return with a wonderful 70% cocoa chocolate bar for me..it is Roncesvalles Chocolate Artesano. They found a bar with tapas is lively with only one barman serving which is quite normal, serving beers, wine, coffees and tapas all on his own. The tapas display is nothing like we saw at the beginning of our arrival in Spain but worth trying. We have mushrooms with garlic and butter mopped up with bread, Tuna...fresh with olive oil - served cold and very good. The croquettes were filled with cheese and ham or pimentoes are quite doughy and stodgy. Then we hit the Internet cafe, a dingy place and part of an amusement arcade which appears to be the only facility for the poor local kids who have to live here. There is a foul smell throughout this "town" almost toxic. It is an Inner City Slum. The smell turns out to be the water purifying plant that we walk past in the morning.

Day Four : Oloron St Marie to Sarrance

Val - Minister of Nutrition
A friend of Syl´s (although they had never met until this morning - they know each other from the Via Francigena association) arrived late last night with two other English people. They are not planning to walk as far as us today. We walk through bad mud today and SMS Anne and her fellow walkers to rather take the road. We keep meeting them along the way and they have changed their minds and are going to continue to Sarrance and stay at the same place as us.
We meet them on the road side and they say they are going to the next village to find a beer. Time to jump ship me thinks.....these are my kind of walkers!
It´s day four and getting into the zone...that is to say that there is no multi-tasking...sit in a field and eat an apple...that´s it...just sit in the field and eat the apple, don´t read your email as you do so, don´t empty things out of the dishwasher with every bite, don´t try and multi task. It is what I like to call ¨living in the moment¨- and it feels great.
Today I am carrying a box of camembert..poor Marion is grumbling on about a smell...and we soon realise it is coming from the top of my backpack. What a relief she says, I thought it was me! Marion is carrying 4 tins of pate, we bought them in a pack, just enough for us to eat one each lunchtime. We also bought some wonderful walnut bread. We are sitting on a bench overlooking a beautiful valley, a man arrives in his car and off loads bottles for the French equivalent of a bottle bank. Syl goes over to speak to him....she speaks to him for ages, waving her hands about...poor man we think, he probably doesn´t have the faintest idea what she is saying, she doesn´t speak French but her Spanish is good. Then when she comes back, we say poor man Syl, you will be his dinner table story tonight. Oh, he speaks English, she says, he has been to Namibia and Kruger!
He tells us to visit the butcher in Sarrance it is the best in the Valley which we do. We buy proscuttio 8 slices for 1.80 euros. (sorry about the spelling, french key boards, spanish key boards and spell check doesn´t work and we have to type fast as others are waiting for a chance on the free internet!) On the way we pass a van which is converted into a travelling clothes shop...these people have no shops other than food. A lovely route but lots of stinging nettles and I keep stinging my hands...there are no dock leaves which we always used when we were kids to take the sting away, and I always thought they grew alongside stinging nettles but not here.
We arrive at our accommodation. Syl booked it on the internet...it was a monastory which has been converted to a hotel but has kept some simple accommodation for Pilgrims. It looked good on the internet and we are looking forward to it. We turn the corner and there in front of us is a very tired building with a scruffy entrance, rubbish everywhere. We go inside and I am sorry, but it is a dump. And so it will sound somewhat of a contradiction when I tell you that I had the best nights sleep I have had in a long time (and I sleep well at the best of times) and the best hospitality and evening. The English people arrived, Anne, Jerry and Jim. They didn´t get their beer and asked for one the moment they arrived. This was provided without hesitation.
The owners are Corinne and Richie. She is a teacher from Essex (but thankfully does not sound like an Essex´s girl) and he is originally from Bolivia but has lived in Italy with his family. They spent 6 months looking for somewhere to escape the rat race...he was in IT. They could not find anything in Spain or Italy and ended up in France. They are renovating this huge monastory all on their own. (http://fontaines.selfip.com/pyrenees-fontaines-escot-photos.php?m1=2&m2=1&pg=212&m2=1&pg=21m1=2&m2=1&pg=212&m2=1&pg=21m1=2&m2=1&pg=212&m2=1&pg=21 )
Now Richie has definitely used his IT skills when it comes to his website and touching up the picture on his business card. In fact, I think we should invite him to our next Wakefields conference and he can teach our agents how to write adverts and touch up (what are often) terrible photos. Syl and Marion will tell you more about the premises but I will add that these two people are doing a lot right. The beds were clean and warm with generous bedding. The coffee and breakfast was great and their hospitality superb. They showed us around and they were just completing two bedrooms for the upmarket part of the hotel...they were great with ensuites and flat screen tv´s (which I thought unnecessary). They had bookings for these the following week...but the rest of the place looked like a bomb had hit it and it was scruffy and dirty. The dining room was huge but had two tables at one end and old furniture, and rubbish swept in the corners. They said everyone was always giving them advice and that is probably exactly what I wanted to do!
We wash our clothes and our boots are thick with mud. We find an old sink outside and Marion and I go to wash them. Marion cannot stand to watch me and takes over and washes my boots....that is surely a good friend who gladly washes your boots. After showering we met the others at the outside table...I asked for White wine and it was served in a lovely wine glass and was nice and cold. Richie cooked us chicken with couscous and he did a pasta with mushrooms for Syl. He had his own porcini and morels which he had picked from his own woods...well we just hoped he knew his mushrooms! We survived and had a wonderful evening with these very special people. You could not help but just want these two to succeed.

Sil
Oloron Ste Marie: When we came down from our room there was Ann Milner, an Irish pilgrim who I have been conversing with via email for 3 years. When we got home from our walk to Rome in 2006, I found Ann was walking from Santiago to Rome and was somewhat lost in Italy due to no signs or waymarks. I started sending her our Cryptic Clues, a few pages at a time, and information on accommodation. We then kept in touch after the formation of the CPR (Confraternity of Pilgrims to Rome). By sheer chance, just a week ago, we discovered that we would be staying atthe same place in Oloron on the same day! She was walking with Jim and Gerry as far as Somport and was not intending to walk as far as Sarrance but when I told them about the converted monastery accommodation we´d booked in for the night they called in at the tourist office who phoned ahead and booked them in too. They were staying on for breakfast in Oloron so we left a couple of hours before them.
The first couple of kms on the road it was dry but as soon as we turned into the forest we started the ´Slippy-slippy-shake´on mud as thick as custard. When we finally came out onto the road we dithered about a bit trying to decide whether to continue on the path or stick to the road. ¨The rest of the way can´t be as wet as the first part´we said, but it was! Val sent an SMS to Ann warning them about the mud and they thanked us later for the warning as none of them was ready for a slippery sludge walk to Sarrance.
Les Fonatines deÉscot is about 1.5km before Sarrance and one has to take the road route to reach it. It is down a private road and when we turned a corner and saw it for the first time I was amazed to see an almost derelict chatteau amongst the trees. I was even more surprised to discover that there is only one couple running the whole place. On the website it looked like a huge complex, with smart hotel, grand salon, St Jacques suite, many indoor reception rooms and acitivities and a few ´simple´rooms for pilgrims who had use of the grounds. Well, it is a run-down but gracious old building that once housed the St James Study Centre, was a monastery of the Knights of Santiago and still contains a few books and statues from the past.
Corrine (the English owner) took us on a walk to the river where the remains of the thermal baths, healing spring (the Fontaines) and hot houses used to be. It was amazing to see the old stone baths in rooms below the viewing walkway. The grotoo has fertility parietal art and other symbols in the stones. The water that continually springs out into a stone basin is warm and has been tested as ´potable´. We all filled our bottles before continuing down to the pebble beach where we could see trout jumping and flopping in the pools below the rocks.
While having drinks on the terrace Ricky pointed out a Royal Eagle´s nest on the rocks high above the river. There are four pairs of these rare birds in the area which is a nature park. We had a wonderful dinner, cooked by Richie.
We had a good sleep - Annie and I sharing the Buddelia simple room with a secret toilet that we were asked not to use at night as it is electric and every noisy!

Day2: Asson to Arudy

Marion
We had a bit of a lie in this morning - just as well as Val & I were a bit tired as we had not slept that well. Syl had slept on a mattress on the floor, Val & I had slept on canvas stretchers and the cold had come through the stretchers so we had been rather cold the whole night. Never mind all part of the fun!
We had breakfast upstairs with Marie and Sebastien at 8.00am and were on the road by 8.30. We walked through quite a bit of forest easy paths on our feet, a lot of up and down hill and cow dung all over. All the trees and grass and ferns are so green, we must have seen every shade of green their is.
The day was overcast with a bit of sun coming out every now and again, no rain, not to hot and not to cold, just perfect walking weather.
We stopped for a picnic lunch of fruit and cheese at St. Colone - quite delicious.
We have enjoyed walking with Marie & Sebastain today. Our accomodation at Arudy is very comfortable, Syl, Val and myself in one section and Mary and Sebastain in another. We are staying in the priest´s house. We will all eat together this evening with the Priest.

Val - Minister of Nutrition......
We have breakfast upstairs with Marie and Sebastain - fruit and yoghurt - try to be good because most of what we get during the day or evening can be very heavy. But for lunch today we have fruit and brie - huge piece of brie for2.30 euro. By lunchtime, having been in the backpack for 2 hours it is just he perfect consisentcy. I think it will just be a matter of time before we start on the bread and pate and perhaps a glass of vino. On our way...oops...I´ve lost my stick - I must have left it in the cheese shop. We arrive at Arudy to crowds of people celebrating the 3rd day of their festival, we are told they have been drinking since 0900am and it shows. But lots of entertainment for the kids with a fair.
We get to our accommodation, wash our clothes and have some time lying on the bed with our legs elevated - heaven. No signal again on the cell phone so I relax with the ipod and Andrea Borcelli just about blocks out the noise outside.
After showering we decide to look around the festival, Sebastien comes bearing wine - he found it! Or so he says with a grin. The restaurants are closed so we can either snack in the streets or the Priest has left us food. We get a glass of wine from the outside bar, quite a mission because I ask for it in Spanish and then get quite irritated that he cannot understand me.
Mary comes bearing 2 huge bags of hot Churros - long thin hot doughnuts smothered in sugar - as we eat an elderly French woman sings to us(?!!). We ride on the local train around the village then we come across the dodgem cars...Sebastien and Marie go in one and Marion and I in the other..I am driver. Wonderful, you get to hit the car as many times as you like with no repairs...Marion and I get hit really hard and our bottoms are bruised the next day. We all go back to the Priest´s house and find bread, cheese and chirizo, and the ingredients for a Spanish Omelette - Sebastian cooks again! The Priest says he will be home around 8pm. Looking around the kitchen it is clear that the Priest appreciates good food and loves cooking. He has every appliance you can think of but don´t get the impression this is a gourmet kitchen, it is no more than a nook without even a space to put a coffee cup.
Around 8.20pm the Priest arrives home and introduces himself as simply Pierre. He is just 60 years old, a handsome man and well dressed. He immediately brings out glasses and a bottle, with a smile he points to the bottle and says "the Spirit of Christ" and pours us each a glass. It is strong but sweet and quite delicious. Then he announces that we have soup to start. A really good courgette soup - we ask him about the ingredients, because it is really good and there is a special taste we cannot quite work out. He lists the ingredients and then finally gets up to show us his Braun blender and announces that the special ingredient is cheese. I am disappointed as I know it will be a local cheese that I will not be able to get. Then from the fridge he shows us the French equivalent of a box of ´Happy Cow´triangles!
This is followed by Sebastians Spanish Omelette which he has turned out perfectly...it is browned on the outside but firm and moist inside...excellent served with salad and bread. More wine...Pierre tells Sebastian that we must try his local cheese...we must say it is good! It is indeed and he then shows us a whole one which he is maturing.
Pierre´s cat has had kittens but two died because the mother was unable to feed them. He has three left and has to supplement their feed with milk given from a bottle. Marie and I get the chance to feed them, it is so special. The evening was wonderful and despite the language barrier we all seemed to communicate. What a generous man to let us into his home, into his kitchen and share the evening with us.

Sil
Today we got ´tampons´(stamps in our pilgrim credentials) from Bruges and St Colome where we stopped for coffee and lunch. We arrived in Arudy to find the streets full of fun-fair merry-go-rounds and stalls. Marie found the house where we could get the key for the Accueil Paroissial au Presbyterre - home of the Parish Rectory and Father Pierre Sallenave - a wonderful priest who Sebastian later described as his kind of priest - one who lives with the people. This pilgrim refuge is donativo but when asked, he said that 5€ is the norm for the bed and also for the use of the kitchen and foods. We decided to give him 15€ each as well as a little yellow beaded arrow.
We are not living the pilgrim life exactly. We get up late and go to bed even later than we do at home! Tonight we didnñt get to bed until 10:35pm - unheard of for this peregrina. The noise of the fair didn´t really disturb us too much we were just too tired to hear it after the first 10 minutes!

To contact Fr Pierre for accommodation you can email him at: pierrs@orange.fr