Sun, merciless sun,
On shorn rocks and unshorn sheep,
Blasting down on all.
Today, we are over los Pireneos!
Today, we are on the Camino de Santiago!
Today, we are real cyclists!
What began as a not-too-hot-and-actually-rather-foggy-and-cool morning in St.-Jean-Pied-de-Port turned into a hellish climb over Europe's western mountain range. We registered ourselves as official pilgrims on the camino (there was not so much to it; basically we filled out forms with our names and addresses, how we were completing the trail (walking, biking, or on horseback), why we wanted to do it (religious, spiritual, sports, or other reasons), and how old we are) in the town, and we were explicitly told to take the highway if we are doing it on bike. Nonsense, we say, we have a map of the walking camino, so let's stick to that route. How hard could it be?
The answer surprised us. Although it's now been about a month and a half of solid cycling, we weren't quite ready for the 1200m climb that spanned just 18km to the top of the mountains. It was rather (as you may imagine) steep, and many parts of it weren't even paved as such; they were simple gravel roads that wound along steep precipices. Along the way, though, we met lots of pilgrims.
The roads into Spain were lined with hot hikers. Fortunately, they were also lined with fuentes (fountains) spouting drinkable water for pilgrims. Everyone had a cheerful "Buen camino!" ("Have a nice walk!") ready for us as we passed, though, despite the rather adverse circumstances. We met some amazing people, including an aging man who had been walking for several months since Holland. There were also a few cyclists as crazy as we were that we saw, but I guess they quit a bit after we passed, as we did not see them again, and we were moving very slowly.
The scenery, as you may be able to imagine, was breathtaking. We stopped to snap photos every time we were out of breath, it seems (which was... often). Sheeps and horses dotted the hilltops around us, and they occasionally deigned to make their silly animal noises our way. More often, they paid us no mind.
Most of the path to the peak was paved, although very steep. We spent more time off our bikes than on them, due to the heat and our inexperience with such grades, but we had no idea what to expect at the top, where our map showed that the road turned south and the camino continued west on 'unpaved footpath.' Turns out that this meant an even steeper climb over rocky, sheep-and-sheep-crap-covered terrain for some distance. It was worth it, though, to haul the bikes so far. Just over the highest point we passed unnoticed into Spain (there wasn't even a marker for the border) and completed our 2500th kilometre.
Coming down the other side, we were first met with a fuente where we expected to fill our water bottles (they had been significantly drained due to heat), but we didn't know that we were going to have to wait in line behind horses. Yup. Four or so horses and a couple colts were busily lapping water out of the fountain, so we elected to move along with the water we already had.
The path continued through some forests and more livestock fields, and we continually alternated riding and pulling due to some strange anomalies like 20cm-deep leaves for dozens of metres along the path. Eventually, we came to a very steep and twisty (but paved!) road that led down the mountainside into Roncesvalles--the first town in Spain. It was a fun descent: we had to stop several times to cool our bike brakes because of continual use.
Roncesvalles greeted us with SPANISH. We went to mass at 20h and were thoroughly confused by the service in another language. We did manage to get space in a pilgrim's spot (the albergue was full, but they had a sort of camping/portables area that we were led to instead), and we found a delicious pilgrim's menu at the local restaurant (water, wine, bread, pasta, fish, fries, and yoghurt) for just 9€ each.
To commemorate our real-cyclist-dom, we spent some 30 minutes in the bathroom at our site dying our hair red. It looks lovely.
Spain is wonderful.