Day 1 - St. Jean Pied de Port to Orrison - April 28

Come now, you who say,
“Today or tomorrow we shall go into such and such a town,
spend a year there doing business, and make a profit”–
you have no idea what your life will be like tomorrow.
You are a puff of smoke that appears briefly and then disappears.
Instead you should say,
“If the Lord wills it, we shall live to do this or that.” James 4:13-17

 If the Lord wills it is often in piety referred to as the “conditio Jacobaea,” the condition James says we should employ to qualify all our plans.

James,  the patron saint of all pilgrims, tells us that we should always use the expression ‘if the Lord wills it’ when we talk about our plans. Otherwise we are nothing but arrogant fools. So as we begin our time on the Camino de Santiago hoping to walk the entire way, we say “Si Dios quiere.”

Prayer for Help from the Angels (Based on Daniel 10)

"In the name of Jesus, we plead the Blood of Jesus upon ourselves, our loved ones and those for whom we are praying. In the name of Jesus, we ask You, Lord, to dispatch Your holy angels to fight with us and for us against the enemy. Just as you sent help to the prophet Daniel, send us angelic warriors to occupy the enemy and enable the answers to our prayers to come through.

We pray especially against any obstacles placed by the enemy to keep our prayers from being answered. Let Your holy angels wield their swords to penetrate the darkness and break through any bondage or obstacles to our prayer.

We pray confidently that having sent Your holy angels to the aid of Daniel, You will send them to help us as we call upon them now. We make this prayer in the name of Jesus. Amen." 
(Prayer composed by Al Mansfield)


It was a misty morning as we began. Young women from Venezuela asked me to take a pic of them on the bridge leaving St. Jean Pied de Port and they reciprocated for us. Sweet. I did not think we would get this photo together. 

The rain began in earnest and I did not take many photos of the first day. We stopped to get out our umbrellas. We started out with our pack covers.

You can see fellow Pilgrims in front of us in the picture above. The first of many sheep we would see along the way.

 Most of the day looked liked this ...

Stoney's umbrella will attach to his pack strap and waist belt so it can be used hands-free but since he's an "in control" type person, he prefers to carry it.

We met a nice group of guys from Ireland who were moving fast. We knew we would never see them again. It was really raining at this point and we stopped for about about 10 minutes to chat under the tree.

Boy, this was a welcome sight! Arrival at Orrison Albergue - our first 5 miles on the Camino completed. Sure happy we could reserve a room here to rest before the butt buster tomorrow. 

It was very crowded and chaotic here with people coming in out of the rain to eat and rest. We found a seat in the corner at the end of the room. This is an American woman who has lived in Costa Rica for 30 years. Her maiden name is Money and she is walking the Camino with two sisters; they call themselves 'The Money Girls.' A young man from Korea joined our table to have a bowl of soup before moving on. Most people walked to Roncesvalles on this first day because overnight space is very limited. I was so grateful we could spend the night here.

We were offered a private room with no heat and we took it. It worked out fine. With the extra blankets and our sleeping bags, we stayed warm.  Getting out from underneath the covers the next morning was another story. 

We were introduced to timed showers here.  We were given a coin to insert and I think we had 3-5 minutes of water.  However, after just a minute, the water stopped. I was a bit irritated; I knew I had not used 3-5 min. worth of water at that point.  I punched the water handle and it restarted. I guess it was timed to shut off after each minute or so and I eventually finished my shower. 

We slept well and we were ready for the climb to proceed up the Pyrenees. This was our fist view on the morning of Day 2. We could see something and it was not shrouded in fog or low clouds.