September 11, 2022
On our last day in Poitiers, we met an old friend, Amadine, who we knew from salsa dancing. She is a PhD doctor of brain science who moved back to France after several years in the US. We were excited to hear that her degenerative brain disease model is looking very positive now that she’s back in France at a Center for Neural Science and she is super busy. But she had time to make a traditional dinner for us, and we had a lovely evening.
We were up early in the morning and caught the 8:20 train to Bordeaux where we changed trains to a slower local train to take us to the small border town of Hendaye. We were helped along the way by an English-speaking Lebanese woman who helped us negotate a problem with an assigned seat already taken. The Bordeaux transfer was a short one and we had to run to make the train. It was full and a little hard to find a seat, but gradually thinned out as we passed all of the resort towns like Biarritz and Saint Jean de Luz. Once we arrived in Hendaye, all we had to do was cross a bridge into Spain and a few blocks to our hotel. We needed to pick up groceries for our hike tomorrow as there will be no stores as we climb over the Jaizkibel without sources of food or water. It’s hot here now and we need to get an early start, by 730 sunrise to avoid the heat.
