We had a great dinner at a table with about 30 pilgrims tonight. Lots of stories. Lots of laughters. Lots of complaints about the weather. The mud. Somebody asks what’s the weather like tomorrow, can somebody check their phone. A funny pilgrim answered: rain, fog, snow, cold. That’s just about sums it up. We all laugh!

A pair of pilgrims were walking with tents and the weather turns do lousy they ship their tents back and now just stay in gites. A group of 8 pilgrims from Lyon rented a mini bus and one of them take turn driving the bus forward with all the packs while the rest of the group walk. That’s the first time we heard of something like that but it seems to work for them and they are quite happy. A group of 4 women just drive a car and stop by the gites at each stage. That’s sure a modern way of doing a pilgrimage! I don’t think they walk much but they just love the atmosphere and the friendship at the gite and nobody seems to mind that these women don’t have to walk through the mud to get to the gite today. We all had a good time. Dinner was great. All fresh vegetables, beets and apple salad from the garden with fresh eggs from the chicken at the farm. Large plates of rice and veal and a fig and apple tart also from the farm.

We have about 5 more days to at Jean and everybody seem to be talking about the Pyrenees. The mountain range looms ahead but it also means some climbing ahead coming up soon, very soon, like tomorrow. We all need to go to bed early, get some rest and be ready early in the morning. Another long day awaits us.

In the morning Ed woke up and put on his boot and when I came to get my boots, my boots were gone!!!! My heart sank. With a full gites of 30 pilgrims, that is my worse fear. I look around in distress when I see the smile on Ed’s face!!!! Ah the clown in him came out. He just played a joke on me and he got me alright. I was worried for a second there. That would be a disaster!!!!! No boots, oh boy, I don’t even want to think about that!

The walk today is very interesting passing through many small villages with all different looking churches. We passed the village of Pomps that has a 17th century church with an interesting octagon-shaped tower. In Castillon there is a an 11th century church of St Pierre that was used as a hospital for pilgrims and travellers at that time. In Caubin there is the restored Romanesque Chapelle of Caubin, which sits on the site of the remains of a former Commandery of the Knight of St John.

We finally arrived into the long and narrow town of Arthez-de-Béarn (nearly 2km from one end to the other!) which is situated along a ridge. As we left the edge of town, we were rewarded with a beautiful view of the Pyrenees. Ed tried to take a picture of me with the big view in the background. He kept backing up further and further into the street to take the picture. A car driven by 2 men came really close to him. They stopped. They waved their hands. I was worried they are mad at us for standing in the middle of the street taking picture. Next thing I know the driver came out of the car. Oh oh trouble I thought to myself. Then he came to us and we a big smile he says “you two together. I take a picture for both of you. It’s beautiful”. That’s was so nice of him. We thank him profusely. And he said: no problem. Just I do it for your big smile!

That was really nice. We love random act of kindness we get along the way.

We arrived into Maslacq where we will spend the night.

We are now so closed to st Jean pied de port, the end for many pilgrims on the camino Le put unless they walk on all the way to Samtiago. We have made so many friends and even though we don’t say it, we are all kind of mindful that the pilgrimage is coming to an end soon. We all just admire the snow capped mountain top of the Pyrenees but we all know that’s where most of us will be saying goodbye to each other. We have made many good friends. We have met many nice people. We have learned many lessons on the way too.

One thing we know for sure, we should plan better so we don’t have to walk hungry. But when I look back we often have extra food but we always eat them all. We eat everything we have with us, even stuff that are supposed to be fit the next day’s walk! And when the next day’s walk comes around we have no food left! It’s tough, we so much walking we are hungry all the time!

The weather has now turned really cold. I wish I have gloves. My hands were freezing all morning. And today we walked with our jacket on the whole day. Most day we only wear our jacket for the first part of the morning and when the sun comes out, it gets hot and sweaty. Now we have to bundle up the whole day.

More climbing tomorrow and for the rest of the way into St Jean Pied de port. We climbing up into the Pyrenees now. It’s exciting but it’s more work also! Ed needs new insoles for his shoes. The old pair of insoles are so worn out they look like a flat piece of mashed up newspaper with a hole in the middle. Ed has big smile today walking with new insole. Much more comfortable I am sure.

We are both holding up ok. Only 82 km to go to st Jean pied de port!