The Pyrennes

I’ve crossed the Pyrennes before via Valcarlos and then Roncesvalles, not an easy route by any stretch of the imagination. Although I did stop at the 12km mark Valcarlos and spend the night. Where I met Kate,James and Hans. This time I was excited to cross the fabled Napoleon’s route.

The road up to where it stops and the grass begins is steep, it sucks the air from your lungs and makes your knees wobble and your legs turn to jelly. I laughed going up there a lot, it made me laugh im not sure why the excitement maybe or the absurdity of the climb. I made Orisson rhe 10km mark in two and a half hours, two fast for a 54 year old man who needs new hips and knees. I stopped there and had a cheesy slice of tortilla and a fresh orange juice. I made myself stay there for almost an hour before I went on, my legs were already not good. The path rose and fell and rose to almost 5000 feet, the wind grew and grew my hearing aids amplified the wind until it sounded like I had water rushing over my head.

To the left of me stretched out grass grazing ground, strewn with rocks, boulders large clumps of gorse peppered with bright yellow flowers and sheep’s droppings and further back more mountains and peaks. To the left the ground dropped away into tight little valleys where the grass on the slopes was a dark burnt brown. Micro forests of hundreds of trees grew down the middle of these tight valleys. Pigs ambled and snorted through the gorse and almost flew down the hills into the woods. Horned cows were grazing contentedly. The many sheep were wearing black and white coats that looked like they had been brushed. Buzzards in groups were circling low and using the wind to rise and fall like surfers in a rough sea. The walkers were spread like washing on a broken line on a windy day, for miles and miles. Bright dots against the undulating green and brown and grey of the landscape.