Camino Trip Day 9: Camino Day 5:

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We slept fairly well last night, as we've gotten used to the routine. We'd decided to leave a bit earlier and avoid the afternoon heat, so we were up at 6am and out the door by 6:30. It took a while to get out of Pamplona, but the walk was fairly pleasant, through parks and such. When we reached the outskirts of Pamplona, we crossed a busy roundabout and headed up hill (of course) to Cizur Menor. I remembered staying in the Mari Roncal albergue when I did the Camino in 2017, and sure enough it was still there, although called Familia Roncal albergue. At the top of the hill, we spotted a decent bar, and since we hadn't had breakfast at the municipal albergue in Pamplona, we stopped for coffee. I forget the name of the place.

We passed a lot of wheat fields and finally made it to Zariquiegui. Manoli sat on a wall next to the church, exactly like the lady in The Way did. From here we started climbing to the Alto de Pardon, a famous sculpture, actually several sculptures. The climb was pretty brutal, but we made it. I was hoping for the popular food truck at the top, but either it was too early or he wasn't doing it today. Oh well. We continued on to Uterga, stopping for lunch at the Albergue Camino de Pardon. Manoli had gazpacho and I had a pretty good tortilla (that is potatoes and eggs with often other stuff like ham added, sort of an omelet).

Just before 2pm we passed through Murzubal, and just after 2:30 we passed through Obanos. Just on the outskirts of town was the Hotel Juke we had reservations for. It was sort of combined with the albergue, but with individual rooms with bathrooms. It cost something like 50 Euros. On hindsight, we probably should have stayed at the albergue for a lot less. After a brief nap and doing laundry we headed out to see the town. After walking around a bit, we stopped at the Hotel Rural Restaurante Cafeteria to eat dinner. We had a pretty good sized plate of paella that was excellent. After dinner, we went to the bridge on the other side of town that the town was named for (Puente La Reina means The Queen's Bridge), and then walked back to hotel.

Tomorrow we head to Estella, a town about 21 kilometers away.

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Comments

[RENanDREW]

The Way
I think I remember this scene; but I'll have to watch the film again at some point :)