A great first day! Luckily the forecast changed and we had bright sun and a cool breeze the whole way up to Orisson.

The day started off with a coffee and pastry around the corner from my hotel in Pamplona and the waitress wishing me “good luck” as I left the cafe – I didn’t even have my backpack with me, how did she know I was a pilgrim?!

I then caught up with Rui, the Brazilian pilgrim from yesterday, at the bus station and we caught the 10am bus to St. Jean Pied-de-Port, the traditional starting point of the Camino Frances. Although I was here 15 years ago when I did my first camino I didn’t recognize it at all. Lots of tourists filling the streets and lots of touristy shops selling touristy things.

We needed to get our first stamp for our pilgrim credentials to prove our starting point. We tried the Pilgrim Office but it had just closed for lunch so a nearby sporting goods store grudgingly obliged us. That done we picked up sandwiches for the road and set ourselves off on our adventure!

St. Jean is on one side of the Pyrenees and the rest of the Camino is on the other! So the first day or two is spent climbing a mountain. As I knew I’d have a late start to the day I made a reservation at an albergue 8 kilometers up the road, the only option other than hiking the whole 24 kms to Roncesvalles.

It was a pleasant .5km out of St. Jean, then it was pretty much steep or steeper the next 7 kms to Refuge Orisson! Fortunately the views were gorgeous so I was frequently stopping to take photos (when actually I was surreptitiously catching my breath!).

Rui and I had a small lunch break about halfway up and arrived at the albergue at the decent time of 3pm, so about 2.5 hours of walking. 7.9 kms and 712m elevation gain!

Orisson was sold out so Rui had to taxi back to St. Jean for the night – he’ll taxi back here in the morning to start where he left off today.

Orisson provides a communal dinner so we all gathered at 6:30pm for a simple 3-course dinner, then we each got up in turn to introduce ourselves with our names, where we were from, and why we were doing the Camino. I thought it sounded a bit hokey but it was actually a really nice way to learn a little about everyone else. There were a lot of Americans, Germans, Danish and Dutch; lots of people walking to acknowledge birthdays and anniversaries, to find answers or inspiration, and touchingly to celebrate 5 years of being cancer-free.

The moon rose over the valley below as the sun set behind us as dinner finished, marking bedtime for all. A good first day!