GR10 Day05

We left the hotel and walked back through the village.  The route took us uphill, first on a tarred road, but then on a track.  After about 500m of ascent we arrived at another road.  The option was now to follow the track round the east side, or the road on the west side, both climbing to the same col.  We walk faster on the better road surface, so we followed the road.  We got to the col, filled our water bottles at a tap, and set off upwards again, this time on a narrow path.  We reached the col, at just over 900m and stopped for a longer rest as it was very hot.  Again, we had a choice of continuing upwards, or walking on another road.  We took the road, thus avoiding an extra 100m of climbing.  We saw vultures circling above us again, as well as lots of buzzards and red kites.  As we descended the road we passed a feeding station for vultures; inside a large fenced area with dozens of carcasses, all picked completely clean.  We rejoined the GR10 and then had a very long descent in the heat down to the valley.  From there it was about another 6km to St-Jean-Pied-de-Port.  This is a nice old Basque town.  It’s one of the start points for the Camino de Santiago, so was thronged with pilgrims and tourists, which is always a bit of a shock, after several days of quiet.  The hotel owner offered to do our washing for us, so that was a big plus.  We had a good meal at a local restaurant and retired for an early night.  Tomorrow’s forecast is for rain, so we will probably be dodging showers.