Starting Days

We arrived in St Jean Pied de Port on the night before May Day to begin the Camino as hoped on 1 May. We discovered right away that it´s a European holiday, and their Labor Day, so there were more pilgrims on the path! Fortunately, we got a very good introduction from an enthusiastic Spanish woman on the taxi ride across the border from Spain to France. She shared about staying in the pilgrim´s hostels provided by the town municipalities, and she let us know the proper thing to say to each other on the path, and that is Buon Camino, it means Good Way. This is the auspicious way to greet one another and wish each other well! It is an international path, and one of the most interesting parts of the journey is assuredly meeting people from all over the world and sharing together why we´re each walking, and what we do, how we think. As we traverse this most amazing landscape of the Navarra country in Spain and the Pyrenees mountains the way has been cold, windy, rainy, muddy, sunny, up and down ... It´s quite a lot to experience and we all reach the end of the day´s journey then to share bunks in a common room in the town municipalities or something akin to such. It´s really a joy to walk this path with so many others! ... And it´s really interesting to meet the people who run the hostels who provide for the pilgrims. Of course, we pay, but it´s little compared to normal prices for accommodations. Some of the people are volunteers who are giving a service at the hostel, so there is a very meritorious feeling of the good deed that is being given as the pilgrims are doing the deed of doing the walk. Nice.
Our first day we walked 27 km to Roncevalles through the Pyrenees and up a 1300 meter pass. On Day 2 we traversed from Roncevalles 22 km to Larrasouna. Day 3 took us near the river and through the valley to Pomplona and just above the town on the west side to a town called Cizur Menor. It is lovely here. We are in an old villa and the gardens are full of irises, roses, calendula, and daisies. Even there are 9 turtles who live in the pond here!
We are well and happy, and each time we look out at the landscape we are in awe of the beauty. The people are friendly, and we are practicing to speak French, Italian and Spanish! We are also appreciating so much the architecture, and finding good vittles along the way, too!
We´ll update when we can!