The Forty Kilometre Day
This is an account of some of my day from Navarrenx to Ostabat. I wasn´t really sure whether to put it up here as it almost sounds like... bragging or martyrdom... or something. However, because the story contains exactly the types of things I ask people to talk about when I interview them I reason that it is only fair that I share my story too.
It was a hard day, probably one of the most difficult of my life physically and mentally, and so I hope that the story, or what little of it is shared here, might help or inform others in whatever ways they need.
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As I sat in the little dinning room of the gite/chambre d´hote I had found for the evening in Ostabat I listened to the owner sing a folk song in Basque. He was a handsome country man with a grin that could warm even the coldest heart. Lined, working hands, like spades, handled the plates, and when empty turned palms backwards so that when he swung his arms as he walked it looked as if he was ploughing his way this way and that. I couldn´t understand a word of the song, but it was of the type that communicated its message through melody and tone: somewhat sad and nostalgic. A song sung by older men about a more carefree time.
While I listened and watched him set the table for dinner I tried to recall the days events. I was tired, exhausted in fact, and as I began to write I found my hands shaking. It was slow to come. Much of the day was gone from my memory, though some brief snippets came back: walking through the dark of Navarrenx as I departed, searching for balises; a little dog I presumed either wild or abandoned who befriended me and trotted along at my side for some 5-6km before heading off-road to inspect some cows, the bitterly cold wind and heavy rain on the descent to Arroue. But of country, town, and path I remembered little.
However, two particular moments stood out. The first was shortly after leaving Arroue. I was moving downhill, driving rain coming from the right. I had been worrying more and more about the identical blisters I had on each foot - on the sole between the big-toe and its neighbour. They had been very painful all morning, but with the cold and the rain, and passing the 20km mark they became excruciating. My mind started to play games. I knew there was a gite in Arroue that I could go back to. There it would be warm, dry, and I could sit instead of having every step like a knife in the foot. Quite suddenly I hit a threefold wall - physical (rain, cold, wind, steep descending roads = painful on the blisters), mental ("oh fuck my blisters hurt"), and emotional ("I´m not capable of doing this"). But the effect was external, like having to struggle against a fast running tide, a wall of bizarre, impenetrable air.
I almost stopped from it, probably only the downhill momentum keeping me going. But mentally I was beaten by the three-pronged assault, and my mind began formulating images of warm dry feet and an easy afternoon in front of a fire (even though there is no open fire at the Arroue gite as far as I know). Every part of me cried to stop and turn back. "Be sensible!" "You don´t have to do this." And finally, "You can´t do this". For a second I stopped, but then something snapped. I knew I had to go on. I had to be in Saint Jean Pied de Port the next day to meet Abi, and to do that I needed to walk 40km that day. But inside I felt like whatever physical barriers I met I had to overcome them. I tried going forward but pain and doubt stopped me again. Suddenly, uncalled for images came; my mother and father, their love, support, and approval for me written on their faces, proud that I would face the challenge and accept it simply and without ill-feeling; my grandfathers, neither of whom I ever met, but from whom I understood that this was something that I could do, in the same way they faced horrors I can´t begin to imagine; and my three brothers, at their ease and looking at me, watching, but with the glint in the eye, the nod, and the smile they said "we´re with you. You can do this". I looked up and walked forward and tears joined the rain pouring down my face as I sobbed openly.
The physical sensation of struggling against a tide remained, but with the hallucinations swimming in my vision I could walk. And then I can only explain that I blacked out, or lost time (kidnapped by aliens maybe). I have no memory of the next hour or so, but I do remember coming to, like having a spell broken, as the rain stopped. I found a strip of road not flowing with water and halted, removed my boots, and lunched.
The second incident occurred sometime later. I must have ´blacked out´ again after lunch because my next memory is of coming to very slowly, like swimming under water towards the surface from a great depth. I knew it was raining very, very hard because my first sense was of my trousers sticking to my legs, a cascade of water off my rain-jacket joining the airborne moisture pouring down them. I wondered about this for a while, not quite realising what it meant. Stupid with tiredness or whatever it was I wondered why this had never happened before, and why my toes were cold. Then, as my senses began to function again I realised I couldn´t see. My glasses were covered in drops of water and fogged over. I don´t know how I had managed to navigate like this as I literally could not see a thing. I removed them and snapped back to full consciousness.
I was walking on a road down a very steep hill, and I realised that what I had taken for cold toes were in fact wet ones. Wet feet to be precise, and the puzzle became clear. The gale blowing against me from the front right pressed my trousers against my legs. The rain the wind carried with it soaked my trousers and ran down my legs into my boots. Looking down I saw, and could now hear, that with every step came a little fountain of water out of each boot with an accompanying "squelch". Now I became afraid. My blisters were bad enough, but here, I thought, was an opportunity for gargantuan ones to form deep below the hardened out skin. "How long had I walked with my feet like this?", I thought. It must have been a while because I could feel my feet ´pruning´.
I knew I had to stop, but the land I was walking through was open pasture. It would have been pointless to stop there, so I walked on, getting more and more worried about my feet. I fancied I could feel the soles slowly peeling off (more ridiculous mind games), and the road was getting even more steep, causing me to worry about slipping. The torrential downpour continued, and so did I until with a thud I came to the valley floor. Visions of foot-sized blisters now played with my head. It must have been half an hour since I had ´awoken´ and I knew the situation was dire. Thankfully, as I rounded a bend I saw ahead a small bus shelter. Hopes and prayers answered!! Saved! I raced towards it and as I got closer thanked whichever god it is that is the one in charge of bus shelter placement, and indeed the local council engineer responsible for deciding to place this particular one such that it faced away from the prevailing rain. There was no seat, but inside it was dry, and I threw down my pack and sat on it to remove my boots and socks.
The next 25mins were spent drinking water, munching on chocolate and dried apricots, and smoking about four cigarettes with shaking hands while my boots slowly drained. I wrung out my socks and put on my second pair (still damp from the night before). But I knew I had gotten through the worst of the day, and I wasn´t worried anymore, just relieved. I didn´t know where I was, only that I was still on the Chemin (thank you GR65 administrators for the excellent signage). As I set off I was still in great pain but I was OK about it, and a few minutes later the rain eased, eventually yielding to a sheepish sun as I descended into Ostabat at 16:15, an hour and a half later.
Somehow I got there, I don´t know how. But this is the story of it, or at least what I can recall.
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