Over Exuberant Luggage

Arrival Day!


“Travel.....the only thing that you can buy that makes you richer”

                   St Jean Pied du Port

We arrived in St Jean Pied du Port, France, a charming village situated at the base of the Pyrenees Mountains that divide France from Spain. A crystal clear river runs through the village. Weather is a mix of clouds and sun, but somewhat cool....a gorgeous day.

The flight from Denver to Munich for Blaze and me was a direct flight and as nice as a ten hour flight can be. Our luggage was over exuberant and refused to join us for our rest night in Paris near the airport. Instead it decided to travel on to St Jean without us. After an evening and night at the Paris Hilton with very minimal personal items we were fortunately reunited with our bags-which contained nearly all of our hiking gear and other essential items-the following morning in the Biarritz Airport in southwestern France. An hour shuttle van ride delivered the 3 of us to St Jean and our small, quaint hotel in the center of the village. 

After settling in we ventured to the Pilgrim office where the Camino begins. Only 791 kilometers to Santiago. Unfortunately we were told that the upper high route across the mountains was “ferme”, or closed due to snow forecast for tomorrow. That means we take the lower winter route which has only 3300 vertical feet of climbing and 1000 feet of descent. Somewhat disappointing as we were all looking forward to the views on the high route, but since the forecast is for 3-5 inches of snow on the high route and all day rain and evening snow on the low route, we prefer being somewhat wet versus being wet and cold.

So early tomorrow we will begin the true heart of our adventure and see how well our hundreds of miles of training pay off!


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