Day 42 St Jean to Banca ( off GR 10) North Pyreneese

WOW what an adventurous 24 hours or so.... We got back into St Jean last night and were trying to decide if we should savage camp or stay at the campground again. The man at the campsite was very nice and offered us a place to put our bags as we enjoyed St Jean free of carrying backpacks! This was nice as he knew we were not staying there.

We walked around trying to find a perfect spot to sleep. The campground was simple, no luxury really so there was some adventure to be had if we could find some cute spot. I think we like the challenge of finding a spot. The kids prefer this and it saves money. I like the survival feel of finding such places. I'm not certain if I have shared but I have met not one person who has stated any objection to us doing this. Maybe because pilgrimages are deep rooted in their history, but I have had campground owners, restaurant owners, even a Camino specific outfitter tell me we should have no problem sleeping like this and setting up camp.

I have heard through the grapevine that it is  best to set up at night and out in the morning which is obviously what we do. Reichen found the perfect spot for us last night, right above the citadel wall we paraded through when we made entry from the Le Puy route. We could actually look down upon the town.

Aynsleigh made a fairy house...complete with chapel and cross...

We went and grabbed our new shoes that daddy had sent to the pilgrims office. I think I have mentioned the disappointment of our HOKAS.  These are light weight marathon shoes, not known for their beauty, that I walked the Camino Norte in 2014. I had zero foot issues, loved the shoes, still wear the shoes I wore some three years later and would almost fall on a sword for the brand.

Now? Not so much. I bought us six pairs, on sale at REI from either $160/$170 a pair down to $130. A huge sale! I wondered why? I think there is a different manufacturer now. I'll never know of course but the design with the same model "stinsons" is a totally different shoe.

We have had holes from the first days, tread gone from the first two weeks and like I said my old ones went in just as tough terrain for five weeks, covered more miles and are still worn by me at home with no tread issues and no holes. REI has an excellent return policy and normally my morale compass wouldn't allow me to return a shoe that I have worn but the issues started instantly.  We contacted them instantly and Steve, my hubby, just paid $250 to ship three of us our own OLD shoes to wear and I had to pay a tax of almost $50 upon their arrival. So yes I will be getting a refund for these as now they are tread free! I'm willing to do a store credit though as I love REI and thus keeps money in their pocket while also getting me shoes worth the money.

I do wonder if this was noted though as the sale price of $130 is far from inexpensive but clearly way less then the cost of the shoes. So for $300 the boys have their year old Salomons and Keen sandals and I have my Keen sandals. The boys are so happy as they have really struggled in their Hokas.

We had a lazy day!!!!

Dave had shared his North Pyrenees itinerary with me.  A trip he took with his high school students. I don't know why but for some reason when the pilgrims office handed me an itinerary to get to Irun that ended up going into my pocket without ever taking the time to compare them. I honestly don't know why, but do remember looking at the pilgrim office one and it appeared nothing as challenging and pretty easy so I just signed up for that....

At about 2:00 we decided we would walk about four hours to get us to the town on the pilgrim office notes, I was not aware that this was not the GR 10 (Great Route, marked in red and white) that Dave's notes would have taken me on.

As we were leaving town a nice woman approached me saying," She follows shells!!!! I follow you and am reading your blog!" Another lady at the exact moment overheard her and said the same. It seemed so crazy to be someone who has little internet presence and no social media account in my name to have this happen while standing in France, it was great to see them!!!!

We assumed my phone was charged  and didn't realize how the night before a blogging activity wore down my battery. We also thought my charger that Wayne gave me was full or close to it and while walking realized it was not. In a pickle, we stopped at the next down to charge things in a church. We didn't want to get in the mountains without any charge, though we were pretty confident we wouldn't need anything and would be fine. Overly confident maybe, but we are rather proud and strong at this point....

( you know where this is going?)....

As we charged we bonded with a cute dog and a one eyed cat!

The phone was about thirty percent when we set off, we should make it town by 8 I thought. I think it was 4 when we set off from Lasse. I honestly don't know what I was thinking, embarrassed to admit I was taking this leg for granted.

We started up and met a lovely farmer couple and took our time talking to them about their sheep and life! What a great time!

We then went up, up and up!!!! The views were spectacular!!!! We kept saying we were so lucky to be walking this path, we were on the GR 10 and the heights were way higher than the pilgrim office notes. I honestly thought I've never walked anything more beautiful. Up, up, up!!!! Red and white everywhere!!!! The trail was meticulously marked, I thought, "no one could get lost here! It is marked clearly and perfectly" ( you know where this is going?)...up, up and up...

We have never been happier!!!!

What a walk!!! We were having a blast!

Crazy picture...

We could see a town in our distance, sun going down but had zero concern. Followed red and white and had no worries. Then at one point red and white descended and it was decided that it joined back up to a road that we continued to walk on up in the mountain. Every few minutes we were convinced it was about to go down hill but never did!

We still had no concern, could see no clear town lights below but still knew we had the ability to camp anywhere and were "fine". The incline, decline, incline dance continued though.... And night was upon us and still no concern though it was clear we were off trail.

I had about 25 percent battery and at 9:48 PM I made the executive decision to call the emergency number NOT for an emergency of any kind but in hopes of just getting some reassurance that we were heading somewhere no matter how far away. Our spirits were high but my insecurity was knowing I had little battery and feared if I didn't call now I might not get a chance. The kids reassured me we were fine and I knew we were fine but just felt with so little battery I should make it known we are "out" here though my total intent was just to get reassurance we were heading somewhere! Keep in mind I have no WIFI here, no phone service unless emergency so my options were very very limited. Here Wayne had given me his charger to help me and thank God he did as it was that charger that would supply the juice for me to talk to the Emergency line for about 2 hours!

The emergency operator after 25 minutes on the phone asked me not to move and that "firefighters" we're coming to get us in thirty to forty minutes. It was now after ten and I still felt that was the last thing we needed.   I just wanted someone to look into the crystal ball and say ,"Yes, you are heading to a town!"  I knew once we had that we could get ourselves out of any situation in the morning.  I urged her not to send anyone but she said they were and NOT to move, this non movement immediately made us cold and thus the desire for someone to come. Tristan reminded me we have coordinates on our compass (great job Tristan) and I read them to her. She again insisted I not move! While talking to her we passed a huge ditch that I thought had huge white plastic in it, it ends up it had two decaying or decayed cows (dead) and the kids got a little freaked. We don't know why they were there, had they fallen, died naturally and placed there, or killed due to disease etc.... I was on the phone with the operator and never realized what was seen until off the phone. 

When finally convinced we should stop for the rescue personnel it was probably 11PM. Forty minutes later we could see the rescue lights, lights of the vehicles and spot lights on the mountain across from us, far from us, a valley (assumed) between us. I called back and told the operators this, that we saw them but they were no where near us. She bounced back and forth translating between captain and crew. She asked for our coordinates again and they were different. She reminded us not to move and we had not!!!! We had no idea why the coordinates were different but three different times when asked they said they were different. Since I had no way to right them down and was just reading them from the phone I did not notice the difference but they kept telling me they were different. We aided them with a green laser light that Karsh had so they knew to look for it. An hour later we could still see the lights on the other mountain even though I told them they were on another mountain and my battery was down in the low single digits. With hardly a percent I called them back and said we had to move that we were uncomfortably cold (not freezing), that our spirits were high, we had food, we were strong, and that none of us were panicking and that as a group we felt we needed to move. Keep in mind we could still see them far from us in what appeared to be search lights removed from a vehicle as we could see the blue lights on the vehicle and an hour of talking didn't seem to be causing them to come to the mountain we were on. I felt I needed to tell them this before the battery died so they would know to call of the search. We battened down the hatches and strongly started walking in what now was a descent but no town lights in site. We were now desperate to find anyplace to sleep and were cold from two hours of not moving. Barbed wire was everywhere and huge cow patties ( poop) filled the streets. Reichen looked in one shed and said only if really desperate should we stop. We all felt good, we all except Aynsleigh felt we could walk for hours and kept going. I think we walked another hour and a half, my phone died right after telling rescue we were going to move on, they were well aware my phone was dying and I assured them not to worry about us as the phone died. I assumed, and they certainly had my support to stop looking for us. I think 90 minutes to two hours would pass when we decided on sleeping towards the side of the road in a patch of grass and to get ourselves out of this mess in the morning. Two kiddos said something to the effect of being scared and I asked them to talk about it so we could set our minds at ease. What were we scared of?

The dead cow image didn't help, but I reminded them that those cows were dead and had been for awhile. We weren't afraid of farmers, there was nothing scary out here. We put things into perspective quickly everyone started crawling into their sleeping bags except Reichen and me and I admitted that I was scared of being cold and waking to heavy condensation and being wet. 

Bronwyn has a game she made and when we left St Jean she shared with me she asks it questions and it answers her. It involves asking a plant with petals her questions and the number of petals decides. The last petal at the top gives her the answer.

Her answers were...

We would have a beautiful walk?Yes

Would we make it to our town at daylight ? No

Would we have a totally different kind of dinner? No

Are we going to find a nice place to stay tonight? Yes

So she shared this with me and as we were tucking ourselves in I thought, "well I guess the game was wrong this time!". 

I quickly rethought it though as what is a good place to stay vs a bad one? We were safe! We were together! We had love! We had safety though we had discomfort. Times like this I think about the World as a whole and think of the lives others have and clearly know we were not in the worst scenario. I was just giving my pep talk (and my ears needed to hear it too) when down this little country road where we passed only one house and a million piles of cow poo blue lights were heading straight to us!!!!!

Out  pops four wonderful firemen and it is two in the morning!!!! No one had fallen asleep yet and we were nibbling on bread, though we were five minutes from it and they looked at our set up on the ground and I think we're in disbelief. They said they saw our green laser light (which we communicated we would use) but that by the time they made it there we were gone. We told them the direction we came in from which was different than their direction and I think they realized what we already knew, they never were where we were. They of course looked desperately for us, but we were wise to move on as the path we came down gave no choice but for them to have come that same way if they were where we were. The blue lights convinced me they had never given up finding us when they certainly had my permission to. 

They helped us pack, I'll never forget Marcel standing beside Aynsleigh packing her bag, something she never lets anyone do. I didn't totally understand where they were taking us but they assured me we were going to a sport complex that had showers and bathrooms and I thought they said," bunker", ends up they said, " Banca".

Loved these guys dearly!!! They got us settled and I asked for their names so we could write them a letter. Marcel told us he saw us that day in St Jean!!!! He waited to share this as I think he wanted to keep professional hat on till all was good but it was neat to know he had seen us walking through St Jean before we even started this trek.

It was three AM when we fell asleep, and we all agreed it was some of our best sleep! 

Bronwyn's game was correct, we would find a nice place to sleep tonight!!!!

We are off the GR10 but a six kilometer hike up the road would lead us to the town that was on Dave's itinerary the first night. We would fix our mistake in the morning.

Dog on the blog...

Belonged to our sheep farmer friends! We loved this couple! Our time spent talking to them might have caused us to lose our way as the sun went down but we all agreed it was time that made our Camino special and I don't think we would change it! One brown eye one blue!