The Return to France Sat 13/07/02   Did not sleep well, as it rained most of the night and I wasn't sure if the single walled tent would keep the water out - which it did. After this first test I am growing increasingly fond of the design and may try to buy it off Bernd, from whom I have lent it for the time being. (VauDe Scorpion II) After a super late start at 13:15 I began the cycling day with the crossing of the Col d'Isperguy (672m) which was an easier ascent than I had expected and rolled down into St. Etienne de Baigorry, a small village on the Nive de Aldudes river. From there I continued on to St. Jean Pied de Port, which I had meant to reach on the previous day. Although the whole trip took me just under 2 hours, I am feeling extremely glad that I didn't undertake it the day before. St. Jean Pied de Port has historically been (and still is) a stopover/starting point for pilgrims travelling to Santiago de Compostela, it also was a lively medieval trading centre on the route the Atlantic Ocean and to Spain. It has an intact town wall behind which one finds the old church and lots of artisan and tourist shops not to mention the many of tourists (to go with the shops) and pilgrims everywhere. Had a quick lunch there and continued on to St. Jean le Vieux and to Mendive, where I asked a local family for advice on the trip across the Col de Ahusquy to Tardet. Ended up chatting to the whole family for about half an hour and found out that the grandparents and grandchildren were visiting from the SF Bay Area and got advice on the best route to go by bike. Jean Laborde who lived in the house had done a 80km circuit the previous day by bike and could give some sound advice. (He also gave me some batteries since the ones I had bought in Spain were packing up after only 2 hours!) Took a photograph of the family and started the 2 hour climb up to the Col de Aphanize (1070m). Approaching the top the vegetation changed and started to remind me somewhat of south western parts of Ireland, with lots of sheep and rolling hills. From the top one had a terrific view back into the valley with a mix of sun and clouds, so with this splendid scenery behind me I embarked on a very cold yet rewarding descent towards Tardet-Sorholus. From there I continued to Lanne where I decided I would definitely stay in a hotel that night, yet the one I had stopped to ask about rooms told me that they were full, so I continued on to Arret, which is ideally located for the next etappe to Argeles Gazost (hard one!). Found the Hotel Salies (**), a popular stopover for the Pyrenean cyclists (they have a wooden shed in the parking lot for bikes) and with a friendly owner who speaks very good German, courtesy of her late grandmother. The room had a bath so I decided to give my aching muscles a rest and had a short bath (which felt incredibly good) before getting a not so great dinner at a local restaurant/pub. Lessons Learned   - NEVER try cleaning your knife whilst sitting on a Thermarest! - Don't buy local Spanish batteries if you can help it.	2073m 85km / Avg: 16.1km/h Hotel-Restaurant Salies Place de l'Eglise - Arret 29 EUR - Ph: 05 59 88 90 GPS: N43 05.632 W00 43.011
Family Laborde View Col Aphanize Sheep on Col Aphanize Hotel Salies
The Cycling Companion from Norway Sun 14/07/2002   End of the first week approaching fast and weather forecast rain and clouds with 22 degrees (brr)! Didn't manage to get off till 11:15 again! I really need to work at getting up earlier, spending less time having breakfast or getting my stuff together quicker. The cycling day greeted me with a 100m climb out of Arette, (which felt like 300m since I was still cold), continuing on in the direction of St. Christau where I took a left onto the N134 towards Escot and turned off for the first peak of the day, the Col Marie-Blanque. At the top of which I met a Norwegian called Tomas, who had been preparing lunch and had had a nap at the col. We chatted for a while and I asked him to take a photograph of me at the top (1040m). The hard climb was rewarded with a very fun descent into Bilheres and Bielle (nice new road going very fast :-) and carried on to Laruns where I stopped for a late lunch (14:45). Couldn't find any place selling water so waited around for the Petit Casino supermache to open and by chance met up again with Tomas. After this second meeting we decided, whilst the two of us were sitting around having lunch, to also conquer the Col d'Aubisque together. During our lunch conversation I had learned that Tomas studied in Trondheim materials science and would be going back to start his Masters thesis in the middle of August. We began our ascent just past 4pm and arrived at the top of the Col after some strenuous 2 hour climb at 6:45pm (temperature around 5 degrees). Quickly put on my jacket and everything else that I had handy, snapped a photo of Tomas and started on the descent, which apart from the cold was really awesome owing to the more shallow slope. Decided to stop riding in Arrens rather than Argeles-Gazost hence sparing us another 300m ascent, which turned out to be a lucky choice since the town of Arrens had some town festival with an awesome display of fireworks and dancing going on all night.(earplugs) As we did not continue to Argeles I had one spare day to explore the area, saving the highest peak - Col de Tourmalet (2100m) for the day after. I planned to use this extra time to go into Lourdes or Tarbes to finally upload some of the stuff I had on the laptop and check mails etc from an internet cafe.	2521m 80.8km / Avg: 13.9km/h Camping Arrens Arrens - Centre Ville 3.80 EUR (incl. Geton pour douche)- Ph: - GPS: N42 57.242 W00 12.700
Col Marie Blanque Col d'Aubisque - Tomas Arrens - Feu d'Artifice Arrens - Feu d'Artifice Camping Arrens
Lourdes, Tarbes and Back Again Mo 15/07/02   From Arrens we cycled down to Argeles Gazost which turned out to be an easy downhill run all the way taking only 20 minutes and from there on to Lourdes where we arrived around lunchtime, cycling past the particularly pretty "Hotel de Ville". Tomas was going to stay in Lourdes and find an internet cafe there, whereas I was going to go on to Tarbes to seek out an internet cafe which Tomas had visited weeks earlier on his way down to Spain and Portugal and he recalled as being a pleasant and extremely helpful place - just what I needed if I was going to try to use my own computer! Made coffee in the park outside of "La Grotte" and arranged to meet up in Luz - St. Saveur in the evening. Took off towards Tarbes only to be stopped and asked to dismount some minutes later, after having passed a rather extraordinary sight of thousands of candles lit up outside La Grotte. Lourdes is a weird and somewhat unique place as it totally caters towards the religious pilgrims heading there and the religious tourism, yet this is manifested in two very different and equally weird and amazing ways. First there is a red pathway marked for handicapped access and it is extremely well used, as there seems to be constant flow of wheelchairs being pushed along there en route to the grotte. Outside the gates which separate the church and the grotte from the rest of Lourdes a more commercial stance in catering for the pilgrims is omnipresent with plastic bottles in all sizes, shaped in the form of the Virgin Mary and neon signs with advertise pilgrims goods etc. The run to Tarbes was extremely fast as it is a slight downhill all the way and the strong tailwind helped getting my average up to almost 30km/h. From Tomas' description and without the help of the map he had lent me I found the cyber-cafe he had been talking about straight away and managed to persuade the very forthcoming staff to let me use my own computer. The Libretto was quite the attraction and even the boss of the cafe seemed quite eager to find out more about the machine. (To get there from the south head into town on the only road that you are allowed as a cyclist until you hit a one way street, turn right there and go towards the statue of a horseback rider, from there follow the signs to the "centre ville" and turn right. As you approach the town center you will see a large market square, about 200m before you reach this there is a small walkway on the left connecting to the same one way street avoided earlier. As you emerge from the walkway, which is very close to the tourist info, turn right and go 50m to reach the very very nice cybercafe. Spent most of the afternoon in the cafe and went through all my mail, which required some initial Unix work before things were working as I had hoped. In the end I only paid for my food (yeah!) and headed out to cycle to Luz St.Saveur. Called Tomas to find out that it had rained pretty much all afternoon in Lourdes and Argeles and that Tomas had decided to stay there. He told me about the Campground in Gez Argeles which supposedly was only a small climb from Argeles! Fought my way back through strong headwind and uphill with a disheartening average of 18km/h and reached the Campsite at 8:15pm Set up tent in a short rain-break and prepared dinner in Tomas' larger tent (a self-built solution with impregnated cotton walls). Got up early after an awful night with not much sleep only to find out from a very nice local woman that Gez did not have a bakery, so we decided to pack up and head into Argeles for breakfast. Forgot to take picture of tent and only got the campsite instead. Lessons Learned   - France does have pretty decent internet cafes! - The Tourist Information is not inherently bad.	879m 85.7km / Avg: 19.8km/h Camping Gez Argeles 200m climb above Argeles 6 EUR - Ph: doubt it GPS: N43 00.736 W00 06.697
Lourdes Hotel de Ville Lourdes Eglise et Grotte Camping Gez (incl. Dog)
Col Tourmalet Tue 16/7/02   Started early and cycled into Argeles where Tuesday happens to be market day, so ended up buying lots of great foodstuff (ham, bread). Followed by an extensive breakfast after which we headed up towards Col Tourmalet in the rain. The bad weather allowed me to actually make use of my gore overshoes which I found out to be EXTREMLY useful if one does not have a mudguard (such as me). Cycled on to Luz - Saint Saveur which are in fact two towns that have grown together and bought some cheese there which I had forgotten to buy in Argeles. Came across some super goat and cow's cheese and met up with Tomas for the gruelling 1400m climb up to the top of Col Tourmalet. Except for the last 250m the climb was not exceedingly steep and hence a pure endurance exercise. After only one short break we reached the col at 15:30 after a 2:45min and took some pictures, after we had put on all the warm garments. Then said my good byes to Tomas who was going to camp near the col and meet up with a spanish friend a day later to watch the Tour de France there. Felt sad because Tomas had been an excellent travelling buddy, and would miss his company. Descended to St. Marie de Campan absolutely freezing and started right on the ascent of the Second col of the day the Col d'Aspain. (hard) On the ascend I decided to take a slightly other route, going roughly the same direction, but on smaller roads, mainly to get away from the heavy traffic in the area owing to the imminent arrival of the Tour de France on the 18th. Unfortunately the small road was also quite busy but scenery more than amended for this. Started with an ascent through dense evergreen forrest and after having passed the treeline was greeted by rolling green hills and sheep (the irish resemblance was back). After having finally reached the top I started on a terrific descent towards Guchen, which turned into a strenuous affair about 1/3 of the way down, as the road was covered in split, making it very nasty to ride on and requiring slow speeds and high concentration. In the end reached Guchen which luckily had a very nice and inexpensive campsite not marked on my Michelin map, right by the river.	2717m 85.3km / Avg: 13.6km/h Camping Guchen Guchen 7.35 EUR - Ph: nope GPS: N42 51.790 E00 20.105
Col Tourmalet Good Bye Tomas
Past the Halfway Mark Wed 17/07/02   Got going early but forgot to take the obligatory photograph (bummer) and spent an incredible 5 EUR at a car wash trying to clean my bike, the chain in particular which was getting pretty gungy - Unfortunately this exercise cost me all the time I had saved through my early start as I got going at 11:00 from the jet wash. Continued on towards Arreau and took a right just outside of Arreau up to Borderes and on to Col de Peyresourde which was a fairly easy climb as it went at a steady 8 or 9%. After having crossed the top, had one of the best downhill runs to Bagneres-de-Luchon, which was steady but not too steep so that I hardly had to break and still went at around 50km/h on a good road. Had lunch in Bagneres, which owes its name to the thermal springs and the corresponding baths that go with it, after which I continued with the climb the Col du Portillon, which turned out to be a real steep and slow going ascend. Despite the relatively short 700m climb felt totally exhausted at the top due to the high average slope on the ascend (sometimes above 11%). Stopped on the way up at a waterfall to wash my face and cool off which made the journey a little more bearable. Descended quickly into Spain to Bosssost and now have officially reached the Michelin Map 235 - Midi Pyrenees - Half way there as the two maps span the whole width of the Pyrenees. Back in Spain, first bought a cerveza and an icecream which cost about half the French price - Spain rules. Decided to call Alfonso to find out what the plan was for the week in August which I would be spending with him and Marta. He informed me that they had booked a PADI dive course somewhere I Spain - Calpe as it later turned out. The PADI certification had been a goal of mine for a long time and would come in handy during the rest of my trip. Continued down the valley fighting against a mean headwind and stopping only briefly at a spanish supermarket to get some really nice wine for dinner. (El Coto - 1998) Once back in France, I was faced with the decision to either ascend one more col and end up with 2200m or stay in the valley and continue on the next day. Since I still felt tired from the day before and had some washing to do I decided to stay in Fos and get going on the fairly long ascent 800m the next morning. Found a nice camping municipal which was incredibly cheap and sat down in the evening sun (it was 6pm by now). Tomorrow I'll would be heading towards St. Girons in the afternoon to find and internet cafe and check on the trains for my return to Germany. Lessons Learned   - Don't set up your tent in the path of ants (lesson learned in Florida whilst skydiving in Sebastian) so I moved the tent.	1667m 68.3km / Avg: 15.5km/h Camping Municipal Fos Fos 4 EUR - Ph: GPS: N42 52.253 E00 44.191
Camping Fos Continue with part III