St. John @ the foot of the Pyrennes

April 21 and we`ll be here for our second night tonight before heading up the Mt. tommorow.
Who could have guessed how beautiful the Basque countryside would be! If I could recommend this trip again, I might say to spend a week hiking in these beautiful foothills, instead of the rest of France. The Basque culture is proud and independent, although most of the separatists are on the other side of the Pyrennes. Their farms are stuck on improbable hillsides, and their houses are always immaculate. Athough we have actively searched for a place that is run down or obvious signs of poverty, they are completely non-existent. Even the poorest place is neat, large, freshly painted, and invariably large. This is despite the fact that the countryside is obviously wet, harsh, and of poor soil. Sheep grazing is the major industry. If you turned the Cariboo countryside from Stanley to Isaac Lake into farmland with some forest and rock outcrops; you might begin to paint a picture.
It turns out that they have Grizzly Bears here, although probably not for long. An article from three years ago says that there are about 15 to 20 bears in the entire Pyrennes...but our host said that locally, where there HAD been 3, two have been killed since the article.
St. John Pied is an amazing fortress town, at least 1200 years old, and built with giant defensive walls, steep cobbled streets and narrow alleys. Last year 33,000 pilgrims travelled through here. That seems like a lot, but from my reading it is about the same number which passed through here per year in the mid 1600`s....at which time the use of the trail was in serious decline!!!! The Pilgrim trade is currently important to this small town, but I can`t imagine how important it must have been in the middle ages when it was probably at twice it`s current level.
Like pilgrims of the last 1200 years, we have been licking our wounds and celebrating our accomplishments before heading over the pass, perhaps to never see France again! Cheryl is busy grooming our Spanish. It is amazing how much french has been hidden in our subconcious and re-awoken during this portion of the trip. Thank god for cereal boxes, and all of the other labels in Canada that are in two languages, and thank good for the fractional bits of attention we paid to our French teachers in Grade 7. I hope we have as good a luck with our Spanish!
Tomorrow we climb 400 metres on a 9.5 km hike. The next day we pray for Sun as we head over the treeless summits another 1000 metres up to the 1440 metre pass and back down to about 900 metres over 16 km. That night we sleep in Spain at Roncevalles, in a monestary in a treeless landscape! I heard from some other pilgrims that there is still over a metre of snow in the courtyard of the monastery, where it is difficult for the sun to shine! Freezing level was at 1400 metres last night so we`re all a little nervous that we`ve brought enough clothes, and that our packs are light enough for the project!

The last picture is a close up of a stained glass window from the Brilliant Basque Church that is here! Church of the Candlelight!
ULTREA! This is the motto of the pilgrim....Forward Ho.