The last day: Saint Jean

I'm laying in a double bed as the day begins below: the bakery is there. Life is truly 24hrs in this auberge: I could smell the dough leavening. People depend on the auberge for miles around. Their bread is great. One day before Saint Jean Pied-de-Port. Breakfast is at 6:30. I'm away by daybreak: 7:18. Quite lovely
Piperade last night: I'd forgotten how lovely that sauce can be. Suddenly English voices can be heard. I felt silent for so long. The merging of the paths.

But now I feel alienated. So I stop with my nature. No need to struggle against what my head says no to. Saint Jean is where everyone heads to begin their disappearance into Spain. It's a bottleneck. For me it is a battle against apathy. Had some food in a very ostentatious and underwhelming environment. Only €14.50 though including a local Basque cidre. And now I am in the Refuge Municipal €10. Someone left some odour eaters which I find very useful indeed, the toe section of the sandles snapped yesterday so the weight has gone down for the flight.

A Brazilian/Spanish man is in the bunk above one of the ubiquitous Dutch ladies (we have come so far together and at least since Château Puy Ferrat) and he starts on the morrow. My memory becomes a little confused. Nineteen different locations, including two days not walking Périgueux and Bazas.

There must be a little happiness left in me ... I must see that what I have done is positive? But apathy is a strange cloud. It won't have me this time. Going to head out for a beer. And stare at all the newbie pilgrims. Bon Chemin becomes Buen Camino in a few kilometres ... You're walking to see some old bones? No, really?