Friends Reunited And We Follow a Snail! Lichos to Gaineko Extea

19.1 miles or 30.8 km Up 609 km down 615 km Last night at supper there had been a vote over what time to have breakfast. We had been outvoted so like good pilgrims we arived down at 7 am. None of the other guests were there! For breakfast there was homemade yoghurt, homemade breadmaker bread and homemade jam. So after a full repast we set off. Today was a day of options about the route we should take. The first choice was to follow the road (1.8 km shorter) or take a high level route on tracks with fantastic views. We decided to take the latter and were indeed rewarded by stunning views of the Pyrenees.

Some time later we came to our second choice of which route. Continue on the GR 65 or take the Escargot route: with a name like that we just had to. The route has been created by the owner of the Gite l'Escargot in the village of Uhart-Mixe which is bypassed by the GR 65, and took the traveller to Uhart-Mixe before rejoining the GR 65 a few km on. The route is waymarked by plaques with hand painted snails on them, rather than the usual red/white balises.

We had not passed any shops and had resigned ourselves to a lunch of peanuts, chocolate and cereal bars, as we thought we would not pass anything before 2 pm, but at 1 pm we heard a church tolling out the hour and realised that Uhart-Mixe was only a few minutes away.

We arived at the Gite l'Escargot to find that it was open and that it had a bar that served food. We also found Seb & Anne who were eating their lunch. They wanted to know if we had run to catch up as when we last saw them we were stopping at Pimbo while they had another 10 km to walk.

The bar served us an excelent vegetable soup, followed by a ham sandwich. After we had eaten and caught up on each others news we set off once more with the owner of the gite/bar taking us to the begining of the onward route. We made our way up and down hill to the village of Ostabat, where in medieval times they could accomodate 5000 pilgrims. Now they only have space for 10! But outside Ostabat at the farm of Gaineko Extea they have a lovely Gite for 30 where we stayed. Our room was of hotel quality, and had it's own area for sitting out.

Over supper we were entertained by our larger than life host, called Benat, who got us all singing Basque and French songs.



We were also fed grandly on food either produced on the farm or from the valley we were in. After another great evening it was time for bed before our last day on the Le Puy route.

On the Camino in France