Transitioning from Basque Country to the higher alpine. The first sign was seeing a village of grey roofs instead of the red tile characteristic of the Basque.

19 June ‘26

Left the hut at 6:20 am and had a nice morning of not too hot temps and beautiful scenery.

There were the usual flocks of sheep and small herd of cows roaming around. Then there was a home and outbuilding, which had a lot of signs on it. I had no idea what any of them meant until I spied ‘fromage’ on one….. cheese!! A man came out of the house and after the usual ‘bonjure, je n’parle pa France’ and then his shrugging a ‘I don’t know a lick of English,’ I ask about fromage and he nodded and brought out a box of cow, sheep and goat cheeses. I caught the word Itaray, which means they were made from the area I had been in the day before (and loved). I bought the sheep cheese. Will see if it survived the moderately high temps.

I’ve decided to get real food as often as possible. What I’ve figured out for hiker food is: dried pork sausage in natural casing, thick seeded crackers when I can find them, cheese when it’s not too hot (doesn’t exist), peanut butter that I got in Paris because French people don’t eat peanut butter (not sure I’ll be able to get any more), and nuts that I got at the last big store. This is all quite, um, monotonous already. And the pork sausage with the ‘natural’ casing….. I need to try it with the casing peeled off because it has an odor/taste of the path floor (vets will understand). I don’t know how vegetarians or those who don’t eat a lot of meat (me) survive this place. Anyways, I will persevere. The food has been meh, mostly. But I did have a great meal at a little ‘snack bar’ by a tourist spot. It was simple, full of veggies, and amazing.

This post is getting too long so I’ll see if I can send it.