Follow Your Arrow

Yesterday we took a bus to Somport, a border crossing in the Pyrenees between France and Spain, sitting at 1,632 metres above sea level. The bus ride from Canfranc was a quick 20 minutes, and from there we meandered our way at a leisurely pace down the mountain – 12 kms – back to our little albergue in Canfranc. The views were stunning with the snow laced mountains all around on a sunny mid-May day. The trail down the mountain was well marked and the switchbacks made it easy to traverse.

As you might imagine, this area around Somport is ski country, but at this time of the year when ski season is over and the summer tourists have not yet arrived, the villages around here are shuttered. This meant that we had the trails to almost to ourselves. And with the weather turning from cold to warm in just a day, I was very pleased to finally put on the pair of shorts I brought along.

Today, I walked the other direction from Canfranc – towards Santiago (just 855 kms away) – to Jaca, a relatively sizeable city in the region. This was a rather easy 20 km walk, with mostly flat terrain and a fairly empty pack. The views today were bucolic. Instead of snowy steep mountains, I walked by farmers in their fields, herds of cows wearing bells, and sheep being corralled by dogs. I really enjoyed watching these dogs at work with their sheep.

I had hoped to visit the cathedral in Jaca, but by the time I got there it was closed for the long 2 and half hour siesta. I had also hoped to purchase a bus ticket to Zaragoza for my trek to Madrid on May 31st, but for some reason the tickets for that day – just 9 days away – are not available yet. Transit here can sometimes be odd to navigate. Oh well, I will try to sort this out another day.

Back at the albergue…tonight we are hosting three men from France who were very relieved to find a bed for the night after a long 30+ km day. We shared some food and drink together, and swapped tales from our various Caminos.