c’est la fin, le terminus, rien plus rien

“A story has no beginning or end: arbitrarily one chooses that moment of experience from which to look back or from which to look ahead.” ― Graham Greene, The End of the Affair

Some years ago I directed Hair: The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical. I tweaked the opening of it a bit by fashioning a brief scene before the start of the actual musical. It included the concluding bars from the Door’s song “The End.” The scene showed Claude’s death in Vietnam.

As I walked during the last day and eventually into Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port, I hummed that music, “The End,” to myself. This is the ennnnnd. (Rather bleak if one considers the lyrics from the rest of the song.)

Saint John-at-the-Foot-of-the-Pass on the Nive river was my destination this day in November, 1 November 2013. It was the town Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port at the foot of the Pyrénées and the gateway for those who would walk the Spanish side following El Camino de Santiago de Compostela.

DAY 36 Larceveau à Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port (peut-être 19km) sur Le Chemin de Saint-Jacques-de-Compostelle.

I have had two goals. The first was to walk Le Chemin, which I accomplished. The second was to post a record for each day that I walked. After 36 posts and after approximately 36 months I will have finished that second task once I push the “publish” button on my computer and you, dear reader, are reading this.

The countryside leading into Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port was pastoral with rolling hills parceled by fences and fence posts. Off in the distance and inescapable while walking south was the blue tinged Pyrénées. (Click on any photo to see it larger and in more detail.)

“Everything is going to be fine in the end. If it’s not fine it’s not the end.” ― Oscar Wilde

Here we have la rue de la Citadelle and the Port Saint-Jacques through which all pèlerins will have passed after arriving in St.-Jean. It is centuries old.

« Dans la vie, rien ne se résout; tout continue. On demeure dans l’incertitude; et on restera jusqu’à la fin sans savoir à quoi s’en tenir (…) » –Gide, les Faux-monnayeurs, III, x

I stayed a few days in Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port, met up with some hiking friends and ate dinner with them, and then made plans to go in a round-about way back to Nice, France where I would catch my flight home. I took the train to Bayonne and then later to Bordeaux. (Click on any photo to see it larger and in more detail.)

I stayed at the chambre d’hôte Errecaldia in Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port which is just shy of the Port Saint-Jacques.