July 4 — Mauleon

For the second morning in a row, a humongous garbage truck rudely awakened us before 5:00 a.m., as it noisily collected and crushed refuse from huge bins nearby.  After cursing at the truck and rubbing the sleep from our eyes, we carried out our usual morning routine of packing up, getting coffee, and moving down the road to our next destination — Mauleon-Licharre, in this case.

Upon arrival, the air was still reasonably cool (predicted high to be 33 degrees later today), so we hiked up the hill to check out the old “Chateau Fort.”  We were sweating by the time we reached the top, however, due to the climb and the sky now being blue and sunny and the air humid.  The view was beautiful!  Back down again at street level, we explored around the town, had a picnic by the river, and then checked into our Airbnb house, where we’ll stay for two nights (and get our laundry caught up).

After the day’s heat had begun to abate a bit, we drove (thank goodness for air-conditioned cars) about 40 minutes up into the mountains to the Gorges de Kakuetta — alas, it was a disappointing trip, as we were denied entrance because it was less than two hours until closing time.  Despite not being able to walk through and see the waterfalls and other scenic areas of the gorges, we did manage to snap a couple of pictures of the river, to show the beautiful turquoise blue colour.

July 3: Oloron--L’Hopital St Blaise

This morning’s baggage drop off journey took us right by the ‘closed’Lindt chocolate factory and into our day’s parking lot where, much to our surprise, we bought a fresh baguette from a vending machine.

Our actual hike took us past a 12th century Roman church called l’Eglise Saint-Blaise de l’Hopital and onto the Chemin De Saint Jacques De Compostelle en France both of which are UNESCO  heritage sites. The trail was a rugged, difficult climb past many interesting flowers, trees, an ancient mill and a few working farms. All our hard work and pain (including a wasp bite for Laurel) paid off when we arrived  at our turn around spot to find out we were above the clouds. The sounds of thunder however, speeded up our descent where we enjoyed a delicious lunch at this evening’s accommodation. 

The sun broke through after lunch making the afternoon too hot to walk so we went to the next town to replenish our larder. Following a short afternoon siesta, we hit the trail again, this time going in the opposite direction of the morning’s hike. This part of the trail was not as enjoyable and was cut short by a strange noise in the woods and the fact that, first of all, I  and then Jim and Laurel found many small tick-like beetles on my pink shirt and in my white hair.  Back in the parking lot Laurel discovered a real tick embedded in her thigh. Quick showers and body checks found no further hitchhikers on any of us. I think I can safely say that this has not been Laurel’s favourite day.

July 2 : Arudy — Oloron-Sainte-Marie

We awoke in Arudy with two nice surprises.  First, the cafe across the square from our hotel was open early and second, it was market day and so the square was filled with interesting stalls to peruse.  After getting our Camino passports stamped, we fired up our Citroen and set the GPS for Oloron-Ste Marie.  The sky was grey as a curtain of clouds hid the Pyrenees and most of its foothills.  We found our next hotel, unloaded our bags and then hit the streets in search of our trail markers. After an hour of meandering along streets and rivers trying to avoid hills, we headed up, up, up, and out of town.

The reward was immediate, as we found ourselves along a country lane shared only by joggers and friendly dogs. We stopped at Pont du Diablo for some water and a snack, then reversed course and headed back to town.  Our hike covered 15 kms and we were hungry when we passed a Falafel truck so we stopped and had a late lunch before siesta back at our Hotel de France.

Our evening walk was a flat 8 km canal route that started in the tiny village of Moumour and proceeded through irrigated fields of corn, tobacco, canola, peppers, wheat, and some  kind of berries.  At one point we passed a large animal trap beside the canal.  It was baited with a cob of corn and Laurel figured that it was trying to catch coypus, the water rodents that she photographed in Carcassonne.

Back at the Hotel de France, we tucked ourselves in and watched États-Unis defeat l'Angleterre in Women’s World Cup Soccer before drifting off to sleep.  As I wrote this post I realized that just like Louis Barthou, whose likeness was plastered all over Oloron-Ste Marie, we were here!

July 1: Betharram to Arudy

Happy Canada Day—Happy Birthday Brenda 

With no coffee-making equipment in our cabin, and really in need of a decent cup to start our early morning, we decided to dash over to a nearby McDonald’s at 6:45 a.m. to satisfy this need.  Alas, this was a futile attempt — upon arrival, we were dismayed to discover that McDonald’s doesn’t open until 9:30 a.m.!  What?!!?  Even the drive-through was closed!  (Luckily, the restaurant at our hotel was open when we got back there.)

We did a morning hike along the river, back in the direction towards Lourdes, as this was a section that we had missed yesterday.  We passed by a large cave but did not explore it (paid admission) and wandered through a pleasant old village.

Next stop was Arudy, where our accomodation is on the old town square that’s dressed up with window-boxes and planters overflowing with colourful blooms.  Our late afternoon hike took us up the hills through the small village of St. Colombe, then dipped up and down more pastoral hills to the sound of cow bells ringing.  The tops of the high hills and the Pyrenees behind are hidden from our view by low, misty clouds.  On our way back towards “home,” the clouds lowered more and became a misty rain, which then turned into a light rain.  Can you believe none of us had our rain jackets with us??  Jim gamely jogged back to the car, and came to rescue Betty and I from more rain and a barking Border Collie that was assertively guarding his farmyard beside our path.

Sunday, June 30 Lourdes -Betharram

 Today was our first real day as pilgrims and we are off to a truly amazing start! We left our hotel before the sun was up hoping to beat the heat and to our surprise it was a cool 18 degrees and a very light rain was falling. Our morning was filled with two completely different types of hikes—both spiritual in their own way. The first involved St Bernadette and the second involved Mother Nature.

Lourdes is the city of miracles. At the Lourdes’ grotto (cave) between February 11 and July 16, 1858 the Virgin Mary appeared to young Bernadette 18 times. She specifically told Bernadette to tell the priests to build a chapel at this site. Our early morning path took us straight to the St. Bernadette Shrine-Complex which is build over the cave of her visions. Although we arrived before 6:00  there were already 4 different masses in process in four different locations including one at the opening the cave. The photos below will attest to the absolute beauty of the entire grounds including the cathedral and the number of patrons attending the masses. The underground chapel held 25,000 people and certainly was half full before the service began. It was particularly touching to see the number of hospital patients being pushed by nurses.

The second part of our morning hike took us along the river Gave de Pau and deep into Mother Nature. It was easy to get into the rhythm of the of the sound of the river and the birds’ songs. It was so beautiful that I audio recorded it just as I had part of the singing during the outdoor mass. The Pau river was fast moving, full of rapids and a deep aqua blue in colour. It may well be the most beautiful river that I have ever seen.

We disrupted our hike with a train and cab ride to the Pau airport to pick up a car rental as we were unable to hire a baggage transport service for the next eight days and will transport our own bags between stopping points. Once we had arrived at our end destination we unpacked our bags and stopped long enough to picnic in front of our cabin just as the sun broke through.

Our sunny afternoon hike took along the same river as the morning. We stopped to watch a  raft forge a steep dam and then carried on to a small village called Betharram. We visited another ancient  church called Our Lady of Betharram meaning our lady of a beautiful branch. A young girl fell into the river Gave and the Virgin Mary offered a branch and saved her. In the 16 century this site drew thousands of pilgrims. It is here that we met a very friendly priest who invited us back for evening vespers and dinner. All three of us had the opportunity to use all the French that we knew. The priest and his 8 friends were very patient affording us a very enjoyable experience. I must admit though, that it makes me smile thinking about the fact that the three of us, being the majority  of the non Catholics of our generation in our family, end up in such situations.

A lovey 2 km walk back to our cabin in paradise ended our day with a total of 24 km and over 300 photos from which to choose.