I slept well and found it hard to get up in the morning mist
the Basque Country is known for . I probably slept eight hours but could well
have slept for fourteen after such a difficult first day. It was almost 8:00
A.M. by the time I had broken camp and gotten my tent into my backpack, by
which time local oldsters were already walking on the track circling the
football pitch for their daily exercise. Fortunately, no one paid any attention
to me. I managed to find an open store in town and quickly sucked down a two
liter bottle of Diet Coke, the plastic bottle useful to keep for filling up
with even more water later on.

I followed my map closely and climbed up into the hills as
the morning fog dissipated, first along a paved road and then on dirt roads.
Much of the day was pretty ridge walk – Col de Lizuniy, Col de Lazarita, Col de
Irazko. “Col” or collado meaning pass, usually where a paved road crossed a
high point on the dirt roads or trails on which I was walking. Although not
high mountains there were still magnificent views of lovely countryside
throughout the day . The landscape I walked through was almost empty, but just
about everywhere I could see fields, farmhouses, and domestic animals in the
distance, but almost no humans. I did see a few people through the day, a group
of friendly elderly French birdwatchers at a col on the border who wanted very
much to hold a conversation with me in French. Then there was one other walker,
a skinny young French guy with a small pack who said he was also walking the
Haute Route. He didn’t say much but wanted to know the weight of my backpack
and laughed at its size.

I descended through the forest to a stream crossing where I
filled up my water bottles using the filtration gadget I bought for my
adventure along with adding a few drops of virus-killer. Another six liters –
that should last me a few hours. On my way up the hill from the stream I passed
a farm that looked quite photogenic and was greeted by a very territorial pig I
thought was going to attack me. I ran from it as fast as I could with my
backpack sloshing from side to side . Ka-chunk, Ka-chunk, Ka-chunk. The farmer
could well have submitted the video of my escape from the pig to a “Funniest
Home Videos” TV show. Once I got away from the pig I was still in the territory
of three yappy little dogs nipping at my heels, but they weren’t as
threatening. I could easily have flattened them by dropping Gregory on them if
they went so far as to try to bite me.

There were more ups and downs through pleasant countryside
that would have been an enjoyable walk. Gregory, though, made every step
painful. Who is Gregory? Gregory is my enormous backpack, so named by Graham on
my Silk Road trip in 2006 because it says so on the pack, either a make or
model name. All day long I was drenched in sweat from head to toe, the
perspiration streaming down my back and running down my legs. If there was such
a thing as projectile sweating I think I’d be doing it, but it’s not physically
possible for it to shot out of your pores. Every liter of water I drank ran
directly through me, but little came out from its usual exit . During the high
sun of early afternoon there was barely a cooling breeze, the sunshine blazing.
Am I burning up or am I melting? I passed a picnic area with a spring of fresh
water that was mentioned in my guidebook and gulped down a couple more liters
of “agua potable”.

It was around 7:00 P.M. when I passed a lovely farm near Col
D’Esquisaroy. I decided to stop for the night even though I could have walked
longer with a few more hours of daylight left. There was no way I was going to
make it to the town that was my intended destination for the night with my slow
pace and the long rest stops I had been taking. I crashed in my tent, forced
myself to eat some of the high-calorie, low water content foods I was carrying
along with me. I seemed to sleep well on my second night of bush camping
despite my flat sleeping pad. I heard the cling-clang and tinkling of bells
around me all night and occasional whinnying of a horse, braying of a donkey,
and bleating of sheep. I started to dream. I dreamt I was camped out on the
Serengeti and was surrounded by all kinds of wild animals – giraffes, zebras,
aardvarks, wildebeests, and baboons, and they were all wearing bells.