Camino Day 3

Today was a bit of a reality-check after the last two idyllic days. Don’t get me wrong, today was great… but, reality.

First thing was Jennifer has a blister. Blisters it turns out are a bit of a religious issue with the world divided into two warring camps – the ‘poppers’ and the ‘anti-poppers’. After much research, Jennifer joined the anti-poppers for today, but she isn’t a zealot and tomorrow is another day.

The second thing was we went urban today. Now if you look at the photo (above) taken from our hotel room in Zubiri you’d probably think it looks pretty good. But if you zoom in enough you might realize that isn’t a church you see through the door, it’s the exhaust stack for a stonking great magnesium smelter. We know this for a fact because the first part of our walk skirted the smelter right up close.

The walk did get prettier after that, with long stretches of green, moss-lined path tunneling through the trees. Then we walked along a river. A brief stop on the Bandit’s Bridge was free of the historical robbers that gave it it’s name. Then another hour took us to an idyllic bar beside a river where we had tortillas and coffee on the terrace and caught up with a number of people we’d met on the way.

Highlight of people we met today was the couple from the Netherlands who were pulling their bags on wheels, and had walked all the way from the Netherlands. Last year they walked to Rome, all 2,200km. That made our legs feeling tired after two days of walking look pretty weak.

The final 10km into Pamplona was hot and increasingly suburban, although still interesting. It was a relief to see the old city walls loom ahead of us, and and even bigger relief to finally get to the plaza in front of the Cathedral and sit down. We even managed to avoid the forecast rain until we were literally ten steps from the little apartment we’ve rented for the next couple of days.

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