Day 2

I was woken up in the morning by the kindly Mr Hello (again apt). I thought I was fairly familiar with French culture but I was surprised on asking where to coffee cups were to be directed to a pile of bowls. Apparently it's standard in France to have a bowl of tea/coffee for breakfast and dip bread and jam into it. After emotional goodbyes to the two ladies running the hostel a band of five of us set out assuming all the others knew where we were going. Once we realised this was not the case, got our guidebooks out and asked a few locals, we found the start of the "easy" route to our next destination (the other was closed due to bad weather). Our rag tag group consisted of two Germans, a Lithuanian and a Pensylvanian. This group gradually reduced through the day untill it was just me and one of the Germans who I have adopted as my Camino dad. I taught him a few new English phrases such as 'best of a bad bunch' (Angela Merkel is the best of a bad bunch), 'this is a goldilocks walking pace' and 'I am hangry'. The last phrase particularly concerned him when I explained that I can become very angry if I have not eaten. So every mile or so he would produce a large bag of goodies which included apple he had dried himself and large bars of chocolate. I was very grateful as there was nowhere to stop for lunch and there was alot of walking uphill in the rain whilst we made our way through the Pyrenees. The last part of the walk was through snow and we got snowed on which is actually much nicer than being rained on. We got to the hostel with plenty of time to relax meet other pilgrims, shower and have a hearty dinner with a few wines. The first day is supposed to be thw hardest which must be why everyone, at just after 10pm has already gone to bed. Not sure Roncevalles has much night life anyway!