Hola From Spain!

We´ve had a couple of very busy days. Our flights were non-eventful (truly a good thing), but it still took us 24 hours from leaving Boulder to checking into our hotel room in Biarritz, France. Biarritz was supposed to be the place that we crashed after the long journey, but it turns out that it´s (a) a really fun town and (b) we felt fine when we got there so we spent a very sunny afternoon walking around the city. It´s basically a tourist town right on the Atlantic. There were still lots of visitors sunbathing on the beach and swimming (yes, we managed to go stick our toes into the ocean and it was very pleasant!). This is the Basque region of France so there´s a significant Spanish influence. Many of the hotels put out gigantic paella pans on their patios and made the night´s dinner in full view of all the passers by - it was a gorgeous sight! We passed on that, though, and settled for some al fresco dining on moules and frites!
This morning we set out to Rouncevalles, walking over the Pyranees. It was a 15 mile day and we climbed more than 4200 feet . . . and just when our feet and legs were screaming, we had to come down about 1200 feet. All told, it took seven hours. But it was a really beautiful climb - the weather was just sparkling. All along the path, we cut through the Basque farms, repleat with herds of long-haired sheep. At times, their bells were so loud it almost sounded like a musical performance!
Unfortunately, Mark wasn´t feeling too well (a bad Biarritz moule, perhaps?), so I didn´t get the usual rendition of Climb Every Mountain. That´s okay - he´s feeling better now and we have more mountains to get over.
We´re all settled into our albergue with our 118 closest friends. It´s a massive room filled with bunk beds - brings me back to traveling though Europe when I was in college. Except most people traveling at this time of year are our age or older. Lots of moaning and groaning as people lay down on their bunks!
We have some awesome pictures but they´ll have to wait - Mark has the camera and he´s otherwise disposed at the moment. I promise we´ll have them ready to share on the next posting.