After enjoying a lovely lay in I rolled out of bed at 3am with a bag still to pack and a lift at 4 to the airport. Two spoons of coffee and three cigarettes before 3:10 gave me the buzz I needed to get my shit sorted. After piling everything in the bag with the “I’ll sort it all out in Spain” mentality i got the knock on the door from my mate Ben to give me a lift to the airport.

As you can see from the photo above, Stansted is an incredibly beautiful place. This photo is of the driverless train taking me to my tryanair terminal.

This is a photo of a plane. Don’t know if it was mine, wasn’t paying as much attention as I probably should have been. 

After a brief power cut in the plane we took to the skies. People do like to criticise Ryan air but I just got to Spain for £50 so I’ll take the odd power cut in the cabin!

I didn’t realise quite how short and small Biarritz runway is but the moment we touched down I pretty much face planted the chair in front. My fault, I didn’t expect it but I was incredibly surprised how fast those things can actually stop!! The airport itself was tiny. We waited out into the plane parking space while the two passport control guys did thier best to tear through a couple hundred people. 

After avoiding eye contact with the passport control officer and whistling like I “honestly ain’t done nuffink” I was cleared and headed over to pick up my stupidly heavy backpack.

I wandered outside for a taxi, misinterpreted the sign and ended up in the bus rank. I proceeded to find the taxi rank, dive in to a taxi and get a lift to Biarritz train station. After I exited the cab I immediately wandered into the bloody bus terminal again. Fortunately a lovely french lady took me to a magical machine that made everything alright again. With my ticket in my hand I proceeded to jump on then jump off again when I reached Hendaye.

After a cheeky little 40 minute walk I found myself outside the hostel I would be staying at that night. Unfortunately I had turned up 3 hours early and the place wasn’t open. Fortunately there was a cafe 50 meters away that I popped in to for 3 beers. Bloody brilliant it was! Whilst I was there I had time to kill so I started actually doing some research on the route I’m supposed to be doing. Turns out it starts at the train station I arrived at and is signposted towards the hostel. Completely missed all of that. I think I may have been too busy taking photos of the passport control on the bridge that joins Spain and France.

Whilst I was drinking my time away I saw a few backpackers walking past. When I left the pub and went to sit near the hostel they were all there waiting for it to open. It can fill up quickly in peak season but there were only a few of us so that was nice. I sat on a bench eating a ham and cheese “flavour” sandwich and drunk some water which, compared to the lovely beer, was rubbish. I gave it another 10 minutes then walked in to get my Camino passport and booked in to my room. I’m sharing it with 20 people so if I don’t write on here again it’s because someone has smothered me due to my snoring.

Anyway,

BUEN CAMINO