CAMINO DE SANTIAGO. St Jean Pied de Port, The begining of the road.

I don't know exactly when or why we dediced to start the road at St.Jean Pied De port. Perhaps the challenge of crossing the Pirineos made us to choose for the last french stage of El camino. When? I'm sure it was at that Cambridge's dawn, in September when we, unconsciously, said ourself about made it in a so wonderful place.

We've already made a part of the road to Santiago, but just the last one hundred and fifty kilometers, at  Galicia's area. I remember the first village we found then after a small slope. O'Cebreiro, a celtic village of about four houses, and where I thought, feeling that air of freedom, that  El camino could be marvelous. In La Venta Celta we came back to the past, while had a chat with some pilgrim veterans of el camino, and the darknes appeared everywhere at that mountains. They narrated stories of the road, some of them lived by them. One of that stories talks about a miracle happened when a parishioner arrived to the monastery, after fight against storm's snows, just in time for the consecration, then the bread converted on meat, and the wine on blood. Some legends tell The Saint Grail could be hide and seek somewhere of that mountains. I believed in it when sat down on a rock, smoking my pipe and hearing the wind murmur,wich brought me echoes of knights' voices.

Situated in the French Basque Country, St. Jean Pied De Port is a pretty town surrounded by three rivers:Grand NIve, Joyese and Bidouze, all of them tributaries fo the Adour. It belonged to the itinerary of Antonino, Imus Pirenaeus, at the end of the third century, like a part of the Roman Route from Burdeos to Astorga. In spite of until the XII century the main pyrenean ramp to the pilgrims was the Somport's one, which had the Santa Clara hospital at the summit, since then the transit trough the pass of Cize is more used.

Starting from the twelfth century, St. Jean Pied de Port became more important and the capital of the Cize Country. A castle and a walled enclosure were built to defended the place. In the thirteenth century already had a market and a trade fair, and the Bayonne's Bishop resided there temporary. The religions wars beetwen Hugonotes and Catholics, damaged to pilgims and also to this town, wich was attacked by the calvinist troops on 1567. During the modern age the pyrenean pass declined in favour of the coastal routes of Bayonne and Irun.

As soon as we leave the station, I can notice El Camino de Santiago everywhere I look at, Pequeñaja included, who seem to want absorb everything she can see. St. Jean Pied de Port still release a medieval aura, with its citadel placed on top, its paved streets, the church and river Nive's bridge. Thousands of pilgrims who come from the Center of Europe, cross La Puerta de Santiago ( Santiago's Gate) towards Rue de la Citadelle. They show tireness on their faces, but hapiness appear on each one of their muscles.

A couple of beers will help us to arrange ours heads. The dive is covered with wood, and with five hundred conversations about diferents aspects of the same subject, while a peaceful music with a depth of harps and violins,inundate senses. Pequeñaja smiles to me. She enjoy all of this, the atmophere, the people, the place and the challenge in front of us, of walk almost nine hundred kilometers to Santiago. So do I. But that will start tomorrow.

Looking at the photos of the wall, we recognize some pilgrims that we met the first time we made part of the road. Gustave, the Breton, a friendly french who came from the north of France to Santiago de Compostela with a little backpack and a roomy smile. Or that lady walking on a pair of sandals, when the rest of us made it on last generation boots, and finished the day crying because of our foot's blisters.

Here we are, people from all countries of the world, talking in so many languages that could exist. and hoping to see The Santiago Cathedral at the end of our trip.. Through the window I see Notre Dame du Bout du Pont, a gothic temple placed on a point of the medieval bridge of river Nive, in the middle Pequeñaja's face looks like a princess.

- I walk this pilgrimage only for cultural reasons- Say a canadian with a big white moustache. - Are you sure?- Answer back a short italian man, while smoke his huge pipe- In that case you will never last until Santiago.

- Do you think we'll get it?- I ask to Pequeñaja.

-We have to.-

While came back to the Shelter, the river go with us, living and bright, like ours wish.