Le Chemin de Saint Jacques

It took 2 days but I have conquered the first stage of the adventure! Imagine doing cardio for 2 hours straight, well that´s what climbing them was like, and that was only the first day! The second on paper looked even more ominous but in actually it was easier. My first big thing to do when I get to a town with a post office is send some items home or on to Santiago. I was going to do it in St Jean but they wanted 50 euros or 75 dollars to do it. The people are amazing, I´ve walked with Swedes, French, Mexicans, Koreans, South Africans to name a few. The first night I stayed in an Alburgue on the side of the road called Orisson, I went from sharing a room with 3 people in St Jean to 6 in Orisson to over 100 tonight in Roncevalles, but for 6 euros(about 8 dollars) I can´t complain and it´s part of what I came for. They are mainly farmers with a uniique little horse, most of them had recently given birth, imagine a fold the size of a Ladrador Retriever. It took about 5 hours to walk 18 km today, pretty good pace for walking uphill for at least half of it. The Pyrenees also has vultures, they circle the sky looking for dead Pilgrims, glad to say they didn´t dine well the past 2 days. There is a German woman I met who works for Germany´s National Public Radio, she is doing a story on the Camino and will be doing live reports back to her country. Martin Sheen and Emilio Estevez recently wrapped up a movie about the Camino, I believe it´s going to be called ¨The Way¨. The storyline as I understand it is the son of the character Martin Sheen plays dies on the Camino, in fact the part I just finished, he comes to retrieve his son´s ashes, he is then inspired to continue the journey his son started.
I forgot to mention earlier that I´ve yet to run into any Americans other than Jonie Miller whom I came over with. I did meet some students on the flight but they were starting from where I am now. Mountain bikers, for some reason the locals like to take their bikes for walks in the mountains, these hills are a little too steep for riding, though I will give credit to some that did, there was an Italian group of 6 cycling the Camino, they plan to do it in about a week, unlike me that will be here happily for 7 to 8.