Always an ‘adventure a day’ on the road.
The first day`s walk out of St. Jean is a long one – 25 or so km, and includes a mountain range. One of the ways to manage it without killing yourself is to go part way, have a taxi come and take you back to your B&B, and drop you off the next day at the same place. As a matter of fact, our trip company had arranged that – sort of. Her instructions were: at the 12 km mark, at Orisson, the bus will pick you up. The trouble is, Refuge Orisson (a popular spot) is at 8 km – but at the 12 km mark there is a Virgin Orisson statue, which is also said to be a bus pickup point. (The bus is actually a bloke in a mini-van, incidentally.) So we walked further on up to the Virgin and waited – and waited. When no bus arrived, we started walking back down – for what could have been a VERY long 12 km. Definately a communication problem with Andaspain.
However, soon a car stopped to ask if we were okay – walking in the wrong direction is apparently a sure sign of not being okay. He was a local B&B owner showing some Aussie guests the road, and gave us a ride home – such a generous move. Maison Gure Lana. Stay there if you can. What could have been a total disaster turned out okay (after another good meal and a jug of wine).
Anyway, tomorrow we have to see if our return transport is actually booked at all, and if we can get taken up to the Virgin from the Refuge. I do not relish doing that steep 4 km again.
It is not that the 12 km is a long walk – we do that most every day at home. It is that there is over a thousand meter elevation gain. That is two-thirds of a mile – straight up!
The scenery is spectacular,incidentally.
And when we got back we tackled the telephone lady. She tapped on her computer for a few seconds and fixed the problem, so now we have data. She gave no indication yesterday that she could do that. And she refused to tell us what she did today. As a matter of fact, she has also apparently lost all of yesterday’s fluency in English.
Stacey, keep up the great blogging! Didn’t always say that you’d make a good author!
And let us know if, when, where, we can see your GPS route on-line
The take away…always seek refuge from a virgin…
Its those little glitches that make life interesting. As long as it was resolved and you got to your rest spot. So happy to be following you both along the way.