EXCERPT FROM SARA’S JOURNALDecember 5, 1998
Near Urrugne
Cote Basque
Madam Aranna scuttles up the road and sees us off with "a
samedi prochaine!" She’s pleased that we’ll be returning to Mendialde
for Christmas.
We poke and prod through foothill valleys to Les Grottes
d’Isturitz et d’Oxocelhaya. The caves are a long-abandoned subterranean
course of the River Aberoue. Excavations have revealed evidence of Paleolithic Man
with carvings and reindeer drawings. The caves also promise a series of chambers dripping
with rock concretions: stalactites, stalagmites and a petrified waterfall. We park at the
bottom of a sheepy, wooded hill and walk a route designed for tour buses. Midway is a thin
man with a tweed cap and a shotgun. His dogs bark and howl in the woods behind him. At the
top is a bar and a ticket office and a fenced door. The caves are FERME for the
winter. Who knew one could close the doors to a cave?
Reindeerless, we trudge back to Alfi. The view is a postcard. Rich
remarks it’s a grey Tuscany. Indeed, the hills roll, the clouds break, the fields
glow. The valley offers shades from Sienna to Ochre to Jenkins Green, with sheep polkadots
and rambling fences.
The River Joyeuse escorts us from St. Palais. Joyeuse
joyously babbles and arranges a Dubuffet-esque design in the seam of the valley.
Alfi sputters with the weight of our belongings. We’re climbing
the switchback road from Uhart-Mixe to Larceveau. It’s a scenic farmer’s road
off the beaten track towards Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port. Alfi pauses at the hairpin. Sheep
are small at 500 metres. Snow dusts the distant Pyrenees. Closer peaks wear naked trees
for target game. Watching us roll and plead with first gear are more men and more tweed
caps and more shotguns.
There’s a cat with eight lives in St. Just who juste makes
it with a duck and freeze when he recklessly crosses the road in Alfi’s path. Close
Encounters of the Kitty Kind. We spend the next kilometre readjusting our trousers as
Rich consults the rearview for the difference between a walk and a limp.
It sounds like it’s pouring but really it’s the sonorous Nivelle
in front of Madam et Monsieur Defau’s country home. A petit pebbled pont
vaults the rushing stream. Madam is vibrating and gleefully invites us into a large room
with an open fire and a long, narrow table. She is bouncing up and down and grinning as
she apologizes for the cold weather. She asks us to sit in front of the fire, which is one
thick, intact burning tree section. Monsieur Defau is equally exuberant. We’re
puzzling at the thought of some mysterious preceding reputation. Perhaps Gites de France
has prepared them for our discreet yet enigmatic Canadian telephone rituals and heat
consumption? Monsieur is telling us about his friend in St. Jean de Luz who has named his
house Vancouver. Madam is inviting us to visit their city home in Bordeaux. She can
show us around because she knows the city very well. Monsieur says she knows Bordeaux too
well. A neighbour drops in and describes her sister’s home in Point Grey, Vancouver.
Madam asks us where we have been and where we will go and how long we will stay in France.
Monsieur acquaints us with the petit chemin de fer that will take us to St.
Sebastian and where his brother lives on a farm up the road and how to get to the Vancouver
Maison. We sit in front of the burning log and nod and look back and forth at their
gleaming faces. Rich wants to take a photo and instantly Monsieur et Madam are sitting
with us in front of the burning log and the neighbor is fumbling with the digital camera.
When they see the picture they say "Ah regardez tout de suite!" and
we’re off and running about the Internet. I’m about to receive a long-lost
loved-one embrace from Monsieur when everyone simultaneously rises from the log bench and
we are asked if we would like to see the gite now?
