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Published: September 20th 2009
Yesterday we left Roncesvalles in the dark as it was 3km to the next town, Burguete, where we could get breakfast. It was a beautiful walk, through a little path enclosed by trees, alongside the road. The breakfast was good, the same as always it seems, with a large long crusty breadroll, jam, or meat and cheese, and coffee (with "leche" - milk). After breakfast it was onto Zubiri, around 20km away, passing through a few small towns along the way. It was still raining lightly so the wet weather gear was still out. We passed a strange sight of a trailer carrying around 7 dogs - there are so many dogs around here!
After a while the sun came out and we saw the first blue sky on our hike. The walk was starting to get enjoyable, then we hit.... the MUD. Yep, the squelchy, stick to your boots in clumps, cover your trousers with splash-back, brown gooey mud. It went on and on; we were decending for most of the day so hey, at least we got an extra 5cm out of each step as we slid! Then, we started coming out of the mud at the top of a rise, and we saw... the bulls. They were huge, with horns, and about 5m away from us. I looked up and ran the other way, Angi decided to take photos. But when the bull started heading towards us, possibly thinking we had (or were) food, we both got out of the way! The last thing of the day that scared me were three boys, standing near their sheep shed, one with what seemed to be a machine gun! That and their dog in the nearby field was barking madly and not on a leesh - there are so many dogs around and so many warnings of people fighting them off with their walking poles! Luckily I think the dog attacks are not common at all these days as they are getting much more used to people.
We´ve met some lovely people, mostly from our night in Orisson; three old german guys (one of which, Klaus, speaks german, english, spanish and french and has done the Camino before a few times which is most useful), a nice couple from Quebec, a nice english lady who now lives in Munich and a nice young girl, our age and walking alone, Sarah. Sarah has been walking with us which has been nice.
Following all of the walking in the mud, we arrived in Zubiri at a pre-booked private hostel (thanks Klaus) where the owner offered to wash and dry a load of clothes for €6. So Angi and I got a huge bag together, muddy pants and all, and gave it to her - to have nice dry, clean clothes in a few hours. It´s amazing how one can appreciate small things like nice smelling clothes. Dinner last night was at a nearby pub; another small three-course pilgrim menu for €11 with the English lady. Then it was off to bed by 10pm again.
This morning we decided to try to get to Pamplona as soon as possible, so I could post around 3kg of things that I don´t need to the end of the walk, but am carrying because I couldn´t post them from St Jean PDP. We were up at 6.30am, went to the local pub for breakfast (we thought it was at 7am), it turned out to be at 7.30am so we hung around, and at 7.50am when no-one had come we decided to walk 5.5km to the next town. We got some nibbles from a vending machine at our hostel and left for Larrasoaña. We past an electrical station (lots of zzzt zzzt´s could be heard) and a quarry. In Larrasoaña we found a cafe where we got a coffee and a freshly baked roll (Pan in spanish) with jam. The man running the cafe was on his own and it was really busy, so he kept calm by singing very loudly all the things he was doing!
We then pushed on, along the highway for a while, which really hurt my ankles. It started to rain again but not too hard. There were a few lovely stone bridges over rivers today and a lot of pilgrims stopped to stay at a lovely, seemingly wealthy town called Trinidad de Arre. We pushed on another 4km slowly to Pamplona, now not in a rush because Sarah had pointed out that the post office probably wouldn´t be open on a Sunday! We arrived at our hostel around 3pm, got our beds (bunk beds in a big room again, but each set of 2 bunks is in a half-enclave so the noise should be ok tonight) and then headed out exploring the city. There are small streets and little shops and bars everywhere, mostly closed though because it is Sunday. We found a small supermarket so I bought some fruit - the first fruit on our hike! I really needed it!
Tomorrow the post office opens at 8.30am and I´m going to post around 3kg to Santiago. I can´t wait, all of this extra weight in my pack is awful! Hopefully by next post I will be going along a lot better. Klaus says day three is the worst, when the body is hurting the most, and day 4 is begins to get better. Lets hope so!
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Judy
non-member comment
Hang in there!
Hi Lucy, this is so interesting to read. You seem to be meeting some great people (and they are too, meeting you and Angi.) The mud sounds horrible so hope there isn't any more. Also the dogs!! I hope your ankles feel better soon. We are thinking of you both and love reading this blog! The walk does sound spectacular and amazing. Thank you again for writing about it. Judy xx