Day two

At the albergue in Orisson where we stayed halfway through the Pyrenees I met two Italian kids traveling with their dad. I taught them how to play gin rummi, and was beaten pretty badly

 

Day two took us the rest of the way over the Pyrenees. The long climb uphill was extremely hard. We saw hundreds of sheep, cows and mountain horses.




As we reached the peak of the mountain we spotted a van (halleluiah) with other pilgrims surrounding it. On it we saw greetings (in every language you can think of) and a menu written in dry erase marker.




















We also saw tallys on the front door of the van, and it was a tally (for the day) of the places the different pilgrims came from and how many pilgrims were from a single place. Mom, our two friends, and I were the first Americans of the day!

view of the clouds from high in the Pyranees.





I almost cried when I saw our home for the night. The albergue was a converted monestary and the bunk beds were arranged in pods of four, so mom and I could stick together. We shared a pod with an Australian and a Spañard. Our new Australian friend had climbed Kilimanjaro, and said that the climb we had just completed was harder than the summit to Kilimanjaro! Even though we were exhausted and sore we couldn´t fall asleep, there was a man snoring louder than I´ve ever heard. EVER. He was three pods down, but we could hear him like he was right there with us. The poor people sharing a pod with him! Ear plugs managed to do the trick, and I fell asleep pretty quickly. Alltogether a stressfull, painfull, and AMAZING day.