Day 1: September 1, Saint Jean Piied de Port to Valcarlos

We checked out of the hotel at about 8:00. We had a few errands to run that we were not able to do last night due to our late arrival. First, walking sticks. We opted for the wooden ones as they seemed sturdier than the telescopic ones. We got pilgrim shells and patches for our bags as well. Afterwards, a trip to the bakery to buy some food for the walk. Lastly, cash. The next big city we will be in is Pamplona, which is 4 days walk away, and it's always better to be prepared. Lastly, a trip to the church to say our prayers for the start of our camino.

Our destination today was Valcarlos. We initially planned to go to Orrisson, which supposedly had the better view.But they also have a small albergue with very limited slots and you have to make a reservation before you go. Sadly, try as she did, Anj couldn't get a reservation. We later found out that pilgrims reserve beds there as early as 6 months prior. In any case, because of the bad weather, they also were discouraging pilgrims from taking that route on this particular day. 

So Valcarlos it was. The walk was 15 kilometers of rolling hills, so there were a lot of uphill and downhill hikes. You basically cross the Pyrenees from France to Spain. Unfortunately, you also walk mostly on the side of the road, which was not fun. Since the roads follow the shape of the mountains, there were a lot of blind curves, so Anj and I had to keep moving from one side to another. We also didn't see a lot of pilgrims along this route since the ones we spoke to either opted to risk Orrisson or decided to stay another night in St. Jean and wait for the weather to get better.

We arrived at Valcarlos mid-afternoon and the albergue was not yet ready for pilgrims. All the pilgrims were waiting outside and so we started trading stories: Where are you from? Why are you doing the Camino? How far will you be walking? How many days will you walk? You know, basic getting to know you questions.


Once we were able to check in and have our "passports" stamped, we got into our bunks and started deciding what to leave behind. Yes, our packs were only a little over 15 lbs., but you feel every one of those when you're walking uphill, so we had to start paring down. This cutting down and paring down stuff is a trend that we apparently will continue to do all the way to Pamplona.

After that got settled, we showered and started looking around town for a restaurant. There were actually only 2 choices, you either go with the restaurant on your left or your right. They both have supermarkets and they both serve a pilgrim's menu. That's basically a starter, an entrée and dessert with a glass of red wine. At this, our first official pilgrim's dinner, we didn't really know what that was, so we ordered dishes that we didn't realize was part of one meal. Nobody spoke English so they couldn't explain it to us. So we were happily surprised that our bill was quite low since we apparently shared one pilgrim's meal.

After this very late lunch, we went to the supermarket area and bought bread, cheese and chorizo for dinner and yogurt and fruits for breakfast before heading back to our albergue. Thus ended our first day on the camino.