Day 6: st. Jean pied du port to Roncesvalles 30 km 1000 meters

Text to come later enjoy the photos for now.
Eggs for breakfast
Registered as pelegrinos
Wavered on which road to take and decided on the highway
Met spaniards from the canary islands who had some tecnicAl difficulties. I gave my cintilla(zip tie) and my duct tape. they made it to Roncesvalles but pedals failed in the end.
We enjoyed the fixed price emu del pelegrino" and got back to the bunk in the auberge just in time for lights out. Tomorrow we get kicked out before 8 am. Eek. Buenas noches.

Day 5 Urrugne to St. Jean pied de port 70 kms

Lost my text. To fill in later

Had croissant for breakfast: evidence that I really am in France despite no formal border crossing. Ingrid and Jon, our warm showers hosts, lead us through the cutesy little basque towns. We took a walk through Sara, had coffee in Espelette, and cycled through Acain.
Then Ash and I cycled the rest of the day to st. Jean pied du port. What a cool town with a citadel and a cofounder for us right in the middle of town. We enjoyed the company of an Argentinian couple who we say next to at dinner. Finally I hear a Spanish accent that I can understand easily.
Today was a great day!!!

Day 4: San Sebastian to Urrugne, France 40 km

Slow start today too. This may be a trend. Ash and I biked out of town taking a short ferry boat ride to lovely Pasaia San Juan. I think it took us longer to get our bikes on the boat than the boat ride itself.

We cycled to the peak of Jaizkibel hill at ~450 meters with some passing rain showers and amazing views over the ocean. We finally arrived in Urrugne to our warm showers hosts. What a great couple! They had so many great stories about their recent bike trip in Vietnam including eating eggs that work cooked right when they were about to hatch. Mmm.
They took us out to amazing tapas in hondarribia and we went on a walking tour of the town.
Quick post from the phone...

Day 3 Camino: puente la reina to estrella

It gets light so late here so we got a slow start to the day. Our plan today was to get to logrono try some wine, take our bikes on the bus to Pamplona then ride towards Sumbilla. Next day we would go to our warm showers host across the border in France.

That all changed when we got took 1 hour to travel our first 4 kms on hilly gravel and carrying the bike over stairs. Eek. We made it to Estrella to tAke the bus from there. Overall a great day. See highlights below.

Highlights.
Carry bikes over steps
Took road then back to single track then back tracked back to the road.
Apple tree and walnuts
Estrella. Beautiful old chuch.
The best stop of the day was the water and wine taps just for peregrinos doing the Camino. See photos below.


New words:
Cuesta: inclinacion, or grade/hill

Day 3 first day of bike trip

Up early and on the bus to Pamplona to pick up our bikes. After getting all set putting on pedals, getting a bike computer we go get maps.
Our way out of town we follow the Camino de Santiago. As we head our own way following the trusty book we lead one pelegrino astray.

We continue on our path up and around hills checking the book with every turn we make. There are wind turbines getting the wind energy. Here it's called parque eolico. So pretty!

We ditched our book after tough gravel roads and headed back to the Camino.

Off to eat. Thanks for reading.

San Sebastian day 1

After a taking 3 planes and then a short bus ride from Bilbao, I finally arrive in sunny San Sebastian.
I actually feel a bit rested after napping on the bus.

My backpack exploded all over Kepa and Ashlyn's (Kepash) apartment then Ashles and I enjoyed a late lunch and headed to the beach.

At playa Zurriola there were some mellow waves and small number of people surfing. It looks like a good spot for beginners. It was not a nude beach at all, but there are some women who went topless and one guy bottomless.

Later, Ash and I met with Kepa and two of their friends for drinks and pinxos(tapas).

We ate some tortilla de bacalao(cod) and txipirones en su tinta (squid in their ink)-pictured.

Words learned today:
A Casco porro-a funny way to say "a lot". For ex. Esta lloviendo a casco porro
lio o follon- a mess the way we use the word clusterf*. For ex. Que foyon.

In basque country people speak another language called Euskera. Everyone speaks Spanish and a large number of people here also speak euskera. Simple words in Euskera are thrown into everyday language like "hi, bye, thanks....".
It will be interesting to try learning those words as I go.

Mañana I get to explore some more and find last minute things before leaving on our bike trip on the 5th.

San Sebastian Day 2

Holas!
My post from yesterday has not yet been uploaded because I can't get on wifi. So they will probably be in the wrong order.
Well, its not so bad to wake up in the middle of the night when you have a thriller book to read. Unfortunately, my watch is stuck on California time, and I was too out of it to figure out what time it was.
I ended up reading for 3 hours from 3 am to 6 am, then sleeping until 11. Oops. There went my morning.
(Sm)ash and I went for a walk along the water and through old town San Sebastian. We stopped by the local farmers market and bought some goods for lunch then strolled around the beach taking in the views. the water is unbelievably turquoise.
We worked through all the different possibilities of where we will go on our bike trip and made sure we had all the things we needed.
Then I walked around town a bit to explore. I stopped by the San Sebastian convention center (http://lembranzas-ines.blogspot.com/2011/09/chagall-en-la-sala-kubo-kutxa-de-san.html) to see a nice free Chagall exhibit before after getting lost in the grocery store. I love going to grocery stores in other countries. All the possibilities, getting ready for some chocolate covered digestives, yum!

At the beginning of our walk, we ran into a guy moving things out of a small storage space. Nosey me looked in and saw 3 tandem bikes hanging. I asked the guy and it turns out that it is a center for the blind. The bikes are used to take the vision impaired on bike rides (much like they do at BORP). I was hoping to join them for a ride while in town, but it looks like there are not any organized rides during the next two weeks.

Short story long, the same mover saw us on the way back from our long walk and said, "cago en diez, como os lo paseis?" Their was of saying holy crap, you went for a long walk or something like that. Instead of saying shitting on god, they say shitting on 10. The same as our holy crap/hot damn vs. holy shit.

Anyway, that is all I learned today...tomorrow: up early, off to pamplona to get our bicicletas.
photos to come.