Arrived At Last!

It's hard to describe how relieved we feel to finally have arrived in St. Jean Pied-a-Port, starting point of the El Camino Santiago.  There was a point, in the Vancouver airport of all places, that we came close to saying we could not get on the plane.  The plane was delayed by 3 hours anyway, because on the trip from London to Vancouver it had been struck by lightning so that all its mechanics had to be carefully checked over.  But on top of that, I got so nauseous and feverish following a quick meal at A & W that I nearly blacked out.  Diane was about to call for paramedics, which would have guaranteed that they would not have let us on the plane.  But we rode it out after Diane had the great idea of buying Gravol, and that helped enough that I felt I could continue.  We had invested too much to give in that easily.  As it turned out, the plane was delayed a further 90 minutes, which was frustrating because it meant we would miss the bus in Paris for which we had already paid online (no refunds - message to self: don't do that again!), but was a blessing because it gave me the time needed for the Gravol to begin working.  

We finally boarded the plane, scheduled to leave at 8:40, shortly after 1 in the morning, and managed to sleep off and on (mostly on) the whole way to London.  We finally arrived in Paris and caught the last commuter train of the night with 5 minutes to spare.  After a transfer to the metro, and an endless walk through a rabbit warren of underground tunnels, we came up from under the ground in the heart of the city exactly at the place where our hotel was!  A minor miracle, and a huge relief.  We crawled into bed at 1:07 a.m. and, after a prayer of thanksgiving, were instantly asleep.

5 hours later, we were up again (cost of bed=23 euros per hour - but it was worth it!) to catch the fast train from Gare Montparnasse to Bayonne, a trip of 5 hours.  Then 2 hours of waiting for the bus to St. Jean, and an hour+ ride later we had arrived, checked into our B & B, and surprised Jeff, Chris, Arlene Stegeman,  and Joyce Wierda as they were having a coffee at an outdoors cafe.

We have just now returned from the pilgrim's office, where we received the traditional pilgrim's sea shell to hang on our backpacks, and the official pilgrim's passport.

Here are a few pics to prove we're here and to show the general lay of the land....