(I am editing my blog and discovered this post had disappeared so I am reposting it [3-7-2018].  Otherwise nothing new in it.)

(Orisson to Roncesvalles)

Deuteronomy 2:8-10

v. 2 Remember how the Lord your God led you all the way in the wilderness these forty years, to humble and test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands.

He led us all the way this long day and fed us with manna that we did not expect (v. 3) not in the wilderness but on the mountaintop. What a day!

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It took us a while to pack everything up in the morning, including our wet laundry. Breakfast was soggy toast with plenty of butter and jam; people didn’t dawdle but I tend to chew slowly. By the time we got out and filled our water bottles it was 8:12.

The path went up immediately and a fine rain fell. It is supposed to be a beautiful walk but what we saw was just the road ahead dissolving into thick gray nothingness. From somewhere nearby came the atonal clank of cowbells and the unmelodic lowing of a cacophony of beasts. “Is this the gates of hell and the torment of the damned?” wondered Maurice.

After a while the fog lifted a bit. Clumps of gorse with thin yellow flowers lined the road. We lifted our feet over giant black slugs. Occasionally some enormous cows or black-faced sheep would materialize. To our left up and to our right, down in precipitous descent, the grassy slopes and their thrummy hillocks were dotted with cow pies and sheep pellets, everything petering out to the gray of the all-encompassing sky.

After about an hour the fog pulled back and teased us with glimpses of pointed peaks and broad plateaus. Up and around a curve we went and what to our wondering eyes should appear but a food truck! Pilgrims had thrown off their packs and were standing around with hot drinks and snacks, admiring the fleeting view down the mountain of the wide green pastures and our road up through them. We got two watery hot chocolates and a hardboiled egg for my lunch.

We passed a flock of sheep and soon we were at the 14th-century roadside cross marking our turnoff from the road. The low passing clouds stayed aside and we saw the mountain rising before us, a ragged rocky path through the shaggy green and a line of pilgrims clad in colorful rain gear, like ants to our kitchen countertops, like climbers on Everest, snaking upward. (We can’t believe how many people are walking to Santiago!)

At the top was a low stone hut with a rubber sleeping mat inside and a pile of firewood in the doorway; I wouldn’t want to sleep there now but I imagine it would be inviting if one were caught in a snowstorm.

The path turned left along a wood line. We stopped at the Fontaine de Roland, the very Roland who with Charlemagne’s rear guard was killed here twelve centuries or so ago, then crossed a cattle grate into Spain’s province of Navarre, where the trail immediately seemed to be better marked than in France, with uniform poles high enough to be seen above potential eight-foot snowdrifts. On rocky outcrops pilgrims were eating their lunch in the rain. We joined them; fortunately the rain soon stopped.

On the road again, Maurice turned on his music, just what we needed to encourage us. “The captain of the host is Jesus! We’re following in his footsteps.” At the col de Lepoeder, the highest point of the trail at 1450 meters, a sign announced wifi, so we sent Chris a message, then selected the alternative, less treacherous route toward Roncesvalles. “One foot in front of the other. Take one step and then take another.” It was a lovely path winding down the mountain through hills, pasture and forest. From time to time the fog swirled away to give us views of the path ahead and glimpses of Roncesvalles abbey at the edge of the woods below. At a turn in the path we peeked into overgrown bunkers from one of the world wars.

A fine rain had started again when the misty outlines of the monastic building came into view. It had taken us about seven hours, walking over 18 km. After a long check-in line, shower, blister care, hanging the freshly-washed as well as still-wet laundry and a nap, sadly I was too beat to participate in the offered tour around the grounds (just the kind of thing I would normally love).

The abbey at Roncesvalles has been offering hospitality to pilgrims on the road to Santiago for close to 900 years; blessedly they modernized the facilities in 2011. Long dorm rooms are divided into four-bed cubicles with four lockers at the rear; men’s and women’s bathrooms are at either end. The beds looked fresh and clean but I’ve heard about hostel linen service–it may not be every day–which is why I am taking up valuable poundage with my own bottom sheet of the lightest weight cotton I could find (it’s another story why it’s cotton) on which to lay my sleeping bag, as well as a long, only 88-gram scarf (also to be used for warmth and various other needs that might come up) to wrap around my pillow. We thought we had our cubicle to ourselves but returned from dinner and the pilgrim mass to find two Spanish gentlemen had the other beds. Their two wives had beds in the next cubicle over, which meant the women were constantly in our section talking excitedly and doing who knows what. I couldn’t understand why each couple didn’t have their own set of bunks so each husband and wife could more readily communicate. At 10 pm, as we were doing final preparations before getting into bed, a hospitalero came through the dorm. “Lights out!” he announced at each cubicle, stepping inside to turn out the light. So there we were in the dark, which was probably not a bad thing. I sat on my upper bunk and flossed my teeth. Soon Maurice was asleep. The Spanish gentlemen were breathing evenly. Only I was still awake, which was because the two wives were apparently in the bed next to mine in the next cubicle, talking and giggling as though no one could hear them. It was like summer camp! They calmed down soon enough, though, and peace settled once again on the valley of Roncesvalles. “From the mountains to the valleys, let our praises rise to you!”