Camino de Santiago
A 15 mile day today from Zubiri to Pamplona. Still in Basque country, which is great. Temperature in the 40’s when we started, now 62 in Pamplona… though it feels 80 in the sun. Here are several pics from this morning:
Came upon a karaoke/dance party at 9AM this morning… and Maria and Beneto (in line skater and unicycler) were already having a beer. In fact the only time i see them is with an Estrella Galicia beer in hand. However, Maria made my day by saying “Ahndee, help me on” as she used my shoulder to get on her unicylce. My heart went all a-flutter that she remembered my name!
Once again, we come out of the woods to some Camino magic, a beautiful cafe right on the river. A bridge, river, sun, coffee, pastries, friends… perfect setting in the tiny village of Zurain.
We collected Miranda (Australia) and Matt (New Zealand) and continued to walk together. I convinced the group to take a detour off the Camino, straight up this hill in the hot sun to St Stephen’s church. It’s a 13th century church where if you’re lucky, nice and holy, you get to climb the church tower and ring the bell! We met sister Maria (a nun, not the unicycler) in the nave, and she loved hearing about where we were from, and she shared the history of the church. She said the real Camino was the trail we just walked up to the church, and the one we detoured off of was made within the past 50 years. Cool stuff.
Miranda called me her “Camino Angel” for the day because she did not know about the church, the sisters, or the bell, and she just loved it. It was no kiss from Maria (the unicycler, not the nun) but it was nice to hear.
Finally, we reached Pamplona (Iruna in Basque) a fantastic walled city named after Pompey, a Roman general way back when. We took the long way to our hostel on purpose to see some sights, but since its Sunday, most everything is closed. We liked what we saw and decided to stay another day!
Lastly, we decided to teach our new friend Eloise how to play RISK in the common room!
As RISK games go, it lasted several hours. However, we treated Eloise just like she was one of our sisters, and we eliminated her from the game within minutes.