~ Stage5~

Bidarray to St-Etienne-de Baigorry

~ The day's stage ~ from my diary ~

Mid-summers day ~ and not so hot. I slept very well last-night 9-5.30 just like I had the night before. I didn't feel like porridge, so it was coffee and a norange, and on the road at 6.45.
I stayed on the road and over the pass towards St-Etienne-de-B. Very quiet ~ just the farmers up ~ tending big white cows and scrawny shorn sheep. Wonderfull old Basque farms and rolling hills to high escarpments, and the sun didn't burn all below. I planned a route onto farm tracks, and finally arrived in St E, where a game of petanque was in progress.

What I had taken to be a petanque arena was really only a quarter of it. 2 teams ~ red and white ~ of 5? players each. Red bounces the wooden ball on a coffee table and smashes it with their palm 50ft to the wall, where white catch it and hurl it 150yds into the village square where 2 reds catch it and hurl it back. If white can stop it crossing the pitching line they win a point ~ if red can prevent it coming back, they win a point ~ then they change ends. Keep your eye on the ball, it can be deadly.

Well I eventually found a shop that was open ~ reprovisioned ~ rested ~ and headed for the hills. I worried all the way up about finding water ~ but finally found a small source with a resident leach at 2,100 ft. So I am camped on a ledge nearby where the spectacular view is being enveloped by cloud and it's getting cold ~
What will the morning bring? ~ I'm supposed to travel high to 3,000ft ~ then down to St-Jean-de-P.

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Page created: 22nd July 1988. Last modified: 26th July 1998.

John Scholefield
coldfish@itl.net