Larry Goes to Fuengirola. (12) Friday 20 May 2022
So.. having paid for two nights, I thought I would stick around for today. Maybe I still can get to see a bit of the High Pyrenees...
People aiming to walk the Camino de Santiago to Santiago de Compostella start from all over the place; the network of paths stretches all over Europe. Years ago I met a charming Japanese lady who was doing the walk for the third time, and this time had started in Geneva. So when I met her in St Jean, she had been walking for a month or more already. Still, more people begin their pilgrimage in St Jean than any other place.
And they are in for a difficult, hard day. They have to climb up from a starting point of about 110m above sea level to first, the Col de Bentarte (1326m) and then the Col de Lepoeder, at 1426m, before starting to descend 300m to Roncesvalles. So a 1300m climb, not to be sneezed at. It is about 4,265ft, which will get you from the sea to the top of almost every mountain in Britain, bar one or two Scottish ones. It is about a 100m climb from the bottom to the top of Westerhill, where I live, so if you walk up it 13 times without stopping, you will get the idea.. 1426m is not especially high by Pyrenean standards but I thought it definitely counted as the high Pyrenees, so I decided to follow the pilgrims up to the Col de Bentarte. I have been there before, because the HRP goes over the same col, from a different direction. How hard could it be? After all, most of the pilgrims do it (there is a lower, cheaty route that follows the main road).
So I bunged a litre of water and a couple of protein bars into my little bag, and set off. Well. To start with, everything went swimmingly. I chatted to several nice people from Oban, Cleveland Ohio, New Orleans, Germany, and other places too. Up to about 1,000m I was fine, but then fatigue crept in and the last few hundred metres were a bit of a struggle. Still I got there, filled up my water bottle at the Fontaine de Roland, and set off back. It is about 10 miles back to St Jean, mostly downhill of course, but with my bad knees I was not looking forward to it. You have to walk about 1 1/2 miles before you reach a road, and when I got there I decided to adopt plan B and see if I could get a lift back down. Boy, did that plan work! I had gone about 100yds down the road when I heard an engine behind me. I stuck out my thumb and lo and behold, a little French minibus full of young French folk pulled over and a smiling man put his head out the window. Where did I want to go? St Jean? Sure, pas de problem. So I was crammed into the minibus front seat along with a French lady and the driver, and off we went.. no seat belt, but he drove quite carefully and in no time we were back down towards St Jean. We came to a little village called Esterencuby, where they said to get out, which I did along with two girls, and it drove off. Stranded! .. but no, it turned out that the two girls had left a car parked there, so in we jumped and off again.. five minutes later they dropped me off at the entrance to the caravan park, practically next to Larry. Good luck, or what?
Perhaps God is trying to give me warm feelings about the Camino. Actually, I am slightly tempted. If it were more mountainous, more like today, I would sign up but there is quite a lot of marching along flat, hot, dusty roads in Northern Spain which doesn't really appeal. I wonder if a trip involving only 5* hotels and baggage transfers is possible? I bet it is ..
The photos that follow are in a slightly random order because that is what Blogger insisted on:
Quite high now, c1,200m and the views are opening out nicely
Below: big birds, probably vultures though an eagle was sighted, later on
#. 
A decent sized snake, sadly deceased. You have to be quite unlucky to get run over on this road, maybe it had gone to sleep or something..
Horses, a feature throughout the Basque Pyrenees. They are bred for meat but they do at least have a fine life until then..
The Fontaine de Roland, looking in need of a good scrub but a welcome sight nevertheless. It is a source, the best sort of water in the Pyrenees. It comes straight out of the ground, ice cold and pure. You can always tell because if you fill a bottle with it, it is crystal clear and forms condensation immediately.
Footnote: when I got back to my van, I noticed that a few spaces along a 2010 La Strada Nova had appeared. La Strada vans are not common, - exclusive, is the word - so later on I wandered over and have a very nice chat with Ruth and Tony, who are from Switzerland. We compared features and so forth.. I was quite envious of their storage garage, though it does increase the overall length. I hope if they come to the UK they will get in touch, they would be very welcome to park in our drive overnight if convenient. I gave them one of the UK owners club postcards that Marilyn gave me, along with the url for this blog, from which they will be able to read about the Fulbourn La Strada meet..
Tomorrow, I will head off a little deeper into the Pyrenees, heading for Lescun and Iraty..
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