A mid-September 2016 morning in the French Basque Country.
Behind the pilgrim church of St Jean Pied de Port, the
latesummer dawn is, for now, just a
promise of purples and candyfloss pink.
.
Mogette, La Deux-Chevaux Coquette, born in 1973, is dew-covered in camping municipal "Plaza Berri". An owl calls from the woods below the dusky-red Vauban fortifications of La Citadelle...
The first pilgrims are already packing away their bivouacs
by torchlight. Most of them have brand-new camping gear. They arrived on the sparkling little train from Bayonne
yesterday evening, which followed the river Nive upstream along its valley. Despite the veils of jet-lag, the hour’s railway journey struck the passengers, who
were mostly Australian, Canadian, American and Korean, as something quietly
spectacular.
This morning, there will be more than a hundred pilgrims
setting out on the Road to Compostella. Pilgrims, peregrinos, caminantes. Walkers, cyclists; young and
not-so-young.
One of their number will be an accidental hitch-hiker from
Nuremburg. Mogette will find this out in an hour or two...
As usual on the
camp-site, there are a dozen or so baby-boomerbox campervans, which sit like
super-sized Tupperware in a pastiche of suburban comfort. They are arranged in
a semicircle in the semi darkness, their occupants mostly oblivious to the
trickle of walkers.
The movement is towards the boulangerie at the top of La Rue
d’Espagne, and from there more pilgrims will join from the hostels, hotels and
other St Jean accommodations. Ibane Etcheto, 83 and a long- reformed smuggler, waves off his four guests from the first-floor window of his Chambre d'Hôtes.
The peregrino flow will now be upwards, upwards to Huntto, Orisson, Bentarte and Roncesvalles.
The peregrino flow will now be upwards, upwards to Huntto, Orisson, Bentarte and Roncesvalles.
Twenty-six kilometres, over a mountain range and from France, across an indiscernible border into Spain. A long day’s
walk; the first of twenty-nine official stages to Compostella, 900 kilometres
to the west.
Mogette watches the sunrise. Across the street from the campsite a shutter-hinge yawns, elderly metal on metal. Ibane opens the Basque-red shutters of the guest room, leaving the dawn air to disperse the pilgrim odours of linament, new boots and cough-sweets.
As the driver makes tea, the first rays filter down the slope of the owl-wood and welcome warmth evaporates the condensation on La Coquette's vinyl roll-back roof. The roof-mist rises, and a 7.am new-school-year siren sounds from the boarding school in La Citadelle.
As the driver makes tea, the first rays filter down the slope of the owl-wood and welcome warmth evaporates the condensation on La Coquette's vinyl roll-back roof. The roof-mist rises, and a 7.am new-school-year siren sounds from the boarding school in La Citadelle.
There is no plan for the day, save that of starting the two-cylinder engine, and the engaging of first gear...
NEXT TIME...
Learn how Mogette discovers unexpected friendship links, and inter-cultural treasure at the end of a rainbow...
