Camino Blog – Day 9

A dead and soulless town.

May 10th
Navarrette to Cirueña.

22 Miles

I didn’t sleep very well last night. I seemed to be awake as much as I slept. Maybe it was because of the lie-in in the morning. I didn’t feel too tired, though, this morning.

We’re beginning to see Kilometre posts, now.  The last one we saw today said 568 Kms.

We got up at 6:15 to get on the road earlier, because we had a long day ahead of us.
As we set out, there was a mist which kept temperatures down and made for nice walking conditions.

We had to do 11 miles before we met the first restaurant at which we could have breakfast. That was in Nareja, and it took us from 6:40 to 9:30 to reach it.

We had intended going all the way to Santo Domingo de la Calzada, but when we reached the village of Cirueña, we decided we’d done enough.

The day had become quite sunny and hot by then, and the path was through open fields, with absolutely no shelter.  We had covered 21 miles in 6 hours walking time and we’d had enough.

We went to the Albergue Victoria, but it was full, booked out. Municipal hostels do not take bookings, giving beds on a first-come-first-served basis. Private albergues can, and do, take bookings.
This was why the Victoria was full. Also we noticed 6 or 8 bags in the hallways, which had been transported ahead of their owners. Believe it or not, some pilgrims just walk with a bottle of water and some food in a light backpack, while their luggage is sent ahead.

Fortunately, the Albergue Virgen de Guadalupe was nearby and had beds, so we didn’t have to do the last 5K+ to Santo Domingo.

It’s rather basic, and dinner consists of rice, lentils and chorizo, with no alternative on offer. We have noticed that lentil soup is offered universally on the Camino.

The village is quite run down, even the church is a bit of a wreck. It doesn’t seem to be in use. Next to the village is a new village with new houses and apartments, most of which seem never to have been used. There is also a golf course, with a driving range.

My friend, John Finn @Carrigman, who is a stage ahead of us on the road, warned me against staying in Cirueña, calling it ‘a dead and soulless town’.  I can’t disagree with him, but them’s the breaks.

Camino Blog Day 8

Day 8 Monday May 9th – Rest Day

Logroño – Navarrette

8 miles

We were very disappointed to discover that the pension we booked for the night had no rooms with a bath. However, e did enjoy a lie in this morning, until 9:30.

We went out at around 4:30 yesterday afternoon to find something to eat, but the restaurants seemed to be closing down between the afternoon trade and the evening trade. We eventually found a restaurant with a menu at €12.

The meal was nice, with a bottle of wine thrown in. Just after we left the restaurant, we met our old Canadian pal, Dana, who was going to ear and asked us to join him, which we did.

However, Dana decided to opt for wine rather than food, and we had a few beers with him. We were joined by Ann Marie from San Francisco. Dana insisted on picking up the tab for all of us, at the end of the evening. Most generous of him, and now we must find a way of reciprocating.

We needed the lie-in this morning, because between beer and wine we both had quite a hangover.

My socks hadn’t dried by morning so I decided to try out my sandals for walking. They were great, well cushioned, and didn’t rub on my blister. The only problem was they tended to pick up stones on the gritty sections of path.

The swelling around the insect bite on my shin has mostly receded, but the wound, itself, is rather nasty looking.

We got under way by 10:20. We stopped for café con leche at a lovely lakeside restaurant outside Logroño after a little over an hour. Another hour took us to the hillside town of Navarette.
Who was standing in the main street when we arrived? None other than Dana. We booked ourselves into the Municipal hostel. It’s clean and bright, has a kitchen and washing facilities, but it has the slowest of showers.

We met our old pal Tony, from Chelmsford, in the town and had a nice time swapping experiences.  When we first met Tony, at 1450 metres in the Pyrenees on our very first day, he was kitted out in jeans.  In Zubiri he bought hiking pants and cut the legs off his jeans.  Now, he looks like a traditional pilgrim, walking stick and all.  Lovely lad.

We had the €10 pilgrim menu tonight in the restaurant beside our albergue.

Vegetable soup Rioja style

Egg rasher and chips Rioja style.

Tomorrow we plan to walk to Cirueña, about 18 miles.

Camino Blog – Day 7

Day 7 – Sunday May 8th

Los Arcos to Logroño

18 Miles

I probably should have mentioned it earlier, we tell people we meet that we are the Walker Brothers, as in: walkers who are brothers.  We seem to be getting a name for ourselves.

We slept well in the refuge in Los Arcos last night, were up early and on the road by 5 to 7.  It was raining again, but lightly enough.

There were thundery showers forecast last night for today.  We saw a couple of quite heavy showers last night in the albergue. We were in the albergue, not the showers!

We came across more humpbacks today.  We called these ones the Sisters of Mercy.

We fell into a reasonably brisk pace and made Torres Del Rio by 8:35.  We had a quick breakfast there: jamon y queso bocadillo and a café con leche.  Ham and cheese baguette and coffee with milk.

A vineyard, close to Viana, dull day
We made Viana by 11:00 and had our revenues there – a heated jamon y huevo bocadillo.  Ham and  fried egg. Very nice it was, too!  It was washed down with the usual café con leche.  We haven’t had a cup of tea since we left home.

We met our old pal Dana (Pronounced Day-na) a couple off times on the road and he joined us at elevenses in Viana (It means nothing to me).
We met our old Minnesota farmer pals, Lee and Rod just on the bridge into Logroño.

Logroño is a medium sized city.  We haven’t explored it yet, we’ve just booked into a pension, with the intention of having an easy day tomorrow.  We’ll just saunter up the road 6 or 8 miles to the next village of town, after a lie in.

We had planned to take a day off on Saturday, but we were going so well we decided to hold of for a couple of days longer.
We’re both in good nick.  Ricky had a couple of blisters early on, but they’re sorted.  I got my first one today, soon to be sorted.  I also got an insect bite on my left shin which has ballooned up a bit.  Ricky has some bite cream, and anyway I’m right legged, so I won’t be too bad if I lose it. 😳

Today was our longest day – 18 miles, but we maintained a strong pace all day, though we were a bit tired in the last couple of miles.  So we reckon we’ll get to Santiago as planned by June, no problemo.

Camino Blog

Day 6 – Saturday May 7th

Estella to Los Arcos

15 Miles

The Day of the Humpbacks

Last night we went for the Peregrino menu in a restaurant close to our albergue. We met a couple of Kiwis we’d met in the tapas bar in Pamplona, who came and joined us right after we’d had our salad, a very nice ‘Mixte’ salad.  

As we compared notes with Vicky and Rachel, our main course was forgotten about by the waiter. We eventually persuaded him that we hadn’t had it, and he produced it.

When our Kiwis went back to their 4 star hotel for the night, we were joined by our old Canadian pal, Dana (pronounced Day-na), who was keen we drink whisky with him. As we’d already had 2 half litre carafes of wine, we said we’d just have the one. The total bill for dinner including the 2 carafes of wine came to just €24.

We got back to albergue just before lights out. There was no socket beside our bunks, so I stuck my phone charger into one at the end of the room, to charge my phone.

The albergue was quiet enough, and we both slept very well.

When I got up at 6:30 I went to check my phone, but phone and charger were gone. All the people in the nearby bunks were gone too!

I asked Ricky to ring it, but his phone was dead. I had an anxious wait while he got his charger plugged in and got it powered up. All sorts of thoughts ran through my head. Was it a genuine mistake? Did someone deliberately steal it? How far has it gone by now?

Then I remembered that I set up an app on my wife’s phone so she could keep track of my progress, so at least I could track it while the battery lasted. But I wasn’t going to ring her at 5:30 (Irish time) in the morning.

Ricky rang my phone and got an answer straight away. Nobody at the bunks around it owned the phone and they thought it had been forgotten. They’d brought it down to reception. By the time I left the room to go to reception, the man who’d ‘found’ it was already at the top of the stairs.
Panic over and faith restored in mankind.

The walk today was easy enough but it rained, hence the name we gave the day: The Day of the Humpbacks. Many peregrinos wore ponchos that had space for backpacks which gave them the look of humpbacks. Red and green seemed to be the main colours of choice, though there was the odd blue one.

We were cheated at the Monastery of Irache – the wine fountain wasn’t working! A stiff email has been sent!

The tap on the left is for dispensing wine, the tap on the right dispenses water.

We were intending to take the scenic route today, but when we saw all the rain up there, we decided the regular route was wet enough.

A street in Los Arcos.
As we approached Los Arcos we expected to see it after every rise and from around every bend in the road, but it didn’t materialise.  We began to call it Lost Arcos.

We did, of course, eventually find it and booked ourselves in to the albergue Fuente Casa de Austria.  It’s quite hippyish.  We paid €2 each for a ink in a smaller room, €11 each, in all.

We were very lucky with the weather.  Whike it rained steadily for most of our time walking, the rain wasn’t too heavy.  Not long after we got in really heavy, thundery showers have hit the village.
We dined in one of two restaurants in the main square.  The Peregrino menu was €11:50 each, which included starter, main course, dessert and a bottle of wine between the two of us.  We were joined by our Canadian pal, Dana (pronounced Day-na) and Jenny from Australia.

We are sharing our room tonight with a woman from England who lives in Australia, a rather gruff and curt German and a woman whom we haven’t met, because she was in bed, asleep when we got back from our meal.

Camino Blog

Day 5 – Friday May 6th
Puente la Reina to Estella

16 miles

We had the albergue meal last night because we couldn’t be bothered to go down to the village and come back up the hill.

The albergue didn’t have a lot of guests, so it was much more clam and relaxing than the ones we’ve used up till now. 16 of us sat down to eat at 7 pm. About half were German, including a mother and daughter, a father and son, and a husband and wife. There was also a Brazilian, Luis and a Canadian, Louis.

The meal was fine, but unremarkable, except for the sausages. They were quite nice, but EXTREMELY salty. For the €10 we paid we got 3 courses and a bottle of wine between two of us.

The beauty of having our own room was that we could put the light out ourselves, when we wanted to, and they didn’t come on automatically.

I woke up at 3 am with a pain in my head, not from the wine, but from the lack of air. The room had no window. We were using up all the oxygen in the room, like trapped miners.

There was a sliding panel in the roof to allow air in, fortunately. That solved the problem. We slept well after that, until the alarm went off at 6:30.

We were on the road by 7:05 and didn’t stop until 10:00,when we arrived at Lorca and had our breakfast. There was little climbing, so we covered the ground fairly quickly. We reckon we cover about 6 Kms in an hour, or a kilometre every 10 minutes, on the flatter stretches.

The approach to Ciraqui

The street in the village of Ciraqui

The Albergue de Peregrinos at Estella
We made Estella by 12:15, and booked ourselves into the Hostel des Peregrinos for €6 each.

We considered this a bridge too far.
After a shower, we took a stroll around Estella and had a spagetti bolognese in the Peregrino Cafe.  Then we rested up before our supper.

Day 4 – Thursday May 5thPamplona to Puenta la Reina
17 miles

We went out last night and has a lovely ‘peregrino’ menu in a restaurant. They offered us 4 tapas of our choice for €9. The tapas were gorgeous.  

We had an extra glass of wine each, and the total bill still came to only €21.90.

The Albergue Jesus y Maria wasn’t so successful. We were in bed before 10, expecting lights out, but they didn’t go out till probably 11. We were both asleep before they finally went out. However at the back of the albergue, a converted church, there were computers for public use.  

A woman spent from before 10 until at least 10:45 on what sounded like a Skype call, at high volume, in a language I couldn’t identify. The excellent acoustics made sure her every word was carried to every bed.

Anyway, we managed to get asleep when she finished, and were up at 6:30, to be on the road at 7:00.

It was a beautiful morning as we walked through Pamplona’s suburbs and the grounds of the University of Navarre. It was cool, but not cold like it had been in the mountains the previous mornings.
Pretty soon we were climbing. We breakfasted at Zariequiegui on toasted baguette and coffee. In my innocence I had expected something similar to Brennan’s sliced bread. It was still lovely.

At this stage we are meeting the same people over and over. There’s Tony, a young McDonalds manager from Chelmsford, UK, Dana (pronounced Day-na), a middle aged (male) lawyer from Toronto, Canada, a nice middle-aged Spanish man from Grenada, with whom we speak in friendly gestures, an Australian lesbian couple, who have now swapped walking for biking.

Our highest point today was 750m (2,500 ft) at a ridge which had a chain of windmills up the length of it. You can make them out, on the horizon, in the picture below.

We decided go to an albergue a little beyond Puente la Reina today, to shorten tomorrow’s journey. But it turns out we’re about a kilometre off the Camino now, and we’ll have to walk the same kilometre back, to rejoin the Camino in the morning.

However, for €2 extra (€12 in all) each, we have our own little room.

When we started out this morning, we both realised that we probably had gone too fast yesterday while we were feeling so good. However, we got going OK, though we were beginning to tire towards the end of the day.
On all it took us 6 hours and 15 minutes to complete the day’s journey. Tonight we’re going to eat dinner at the albergue for €10 a head. We’re having egg, sausage and chips.

Camino Blog

Day 3 – Tuesday May 4th

Zubiri to Pamplona.
14 miles

To all Star Wars fans, May the fourth be with you.

We met up with our Minnesotan farmer pals, Lee and Rod, again at the hostel yesterday.

We had a peregrino menu last night on the local restaurant. We shared a table with Jorgen from Denmark and Elodie from France.

We had spaghetti for starter and paella for main course – carbohydrates for long distance walking.

We also had a couple of beers, which caused me to make several visits down the yard, in the dark, to the toilet through the night. I’ll stick with wine from now on!

Morning came early, when the Japanese woman in the bunk right beside mine started packing at 5:30. She had more plastic bags than Tesco and Dunnes combined. And she rattled every one of them for at least 40 minutes.

We set off, ourselves, at the relatively late time of 7:15. The day was cool as we meandered on a path through a valley. The sun was beginning to light up the forest on the far side, but we were in the shade as far as Cafe, where we had breakfast.

After breakfast, the sun lit up the whole valley from a clear blue sky. While the sun was hot, the breeze was still refreshingly cool.

We made good time to Pamplona, arriving at the Maria y Jesus Municipal hostel by 12:15, only 5 hours after we left Zubiri.

This is our home for the night, the Albergue de Maria y Jesus.  It was formerly a seminary and the bunk beds are in the side aisles of the former church

We are both feeling stiff in the thighs and calves, but quite strong, on ourselves. We set a reasonably fast pace today without much effort. Even though we tired a little in the last couple of miles, we finished strongly.

After a rest and a shower we explored Pamplona.  Here are some pics.  I’ve figured out how to post them, thanks to advice from my old pal,  Chris O’Donoghue.

The main square, where they run the Bulls in July.  Ernest Hemmingway frequented this cafe.

A sculpture of the running of the Bulls

Pamplona Cathedral.

Portico of Pamplona Cathedral.

Nicely coloured blooms.

Camino Blog

Day 2 Roncesvalles – Zubiri

15 miles

Tuesday May 3rd 2016

Had a lovely meal in the hostel next door for €10 last night.  Three courses plus wine.  We shared a table with 8 other peregrinos, from England, Germany, Spain and France.

We were in bed before 10, at which time curfew came into effect and the lights went out. There were 39 beds in our room the top floor, with a beautiful wooden ceiling in the rafters.  And the bed was quite comfortable.

HORROR OF HORRORS!!!

The lights came on at 6 o’clock!  We knew 8 o’c was the time we had to leave by, but this was ridiculous.  So we packed, bought a sandwich for the road, and were on our way a few minutes before 8.
Nice easy walk today, through woodlands, with a few ups and downs.
The weather was chilly and overcast, but nice for walking.  Made Zubiri around 12 noon.   We booked in to the municipal hostel as soon as it opened, at 1 o’c.

Had a lunch in a local cafe – omelette sandwiches and cafe con leche, with a Spanish iceberger for dessert.
We went for a stroll through the town and saw a flock of a dozen or so buzzards hovering in the sky above.

Camino Blog

Day 1 St Jean Pied de Port – Roncesvalles.

20 miles
Monday May 2nd 2016

We got up at 7:30 this morning, showered and packed, paid up and left, without breakfast, to find the St Jean pied de Port Camino office to get our passports stamped. You need your passport stamped along the way to qualify for the official hostels.

The hills around the town had been shrouded with mist when we left the hotel, but as we left St Jean behind, the sun came out and the sky turned blue. It was a beautiful morning to start the Camino.

We passed and re-passed a couple of sexagenarian yanks from Minnesota, before we made Orisson for breakfast. We were quite slow, 2 hours to cover 8 Kms. The hills were steeper than we expected, and we hadn’t even reached the mountains proper yet.

After some potato and ham tortilla, we headed off for the mountains. The road was crowded with pilgrims. It brought us along a very green, high valley.

Then we climbed up a steep climb to a mountain pass, Col de Loepeder, at 1,450m (4757 ft). That’s higher than any mountain in Britain or Ireland! We came out on the shaded side of the mountain and there was much snow either side of the path, but the path itself was clear.

We went up and down along the path until we eventually came to the final, steep descent into Roncesvalles, through beautiful beech woods.

We booked into the municipal albergue , Colegiata, which contains 297 beds, it seems. The overspill section has 110 beds in one room.

We got into the main part; we’re on the 3rd floor. It’s open plan, with beds set out in pairs in little cubicles, with a locking locker and a power point for each occupant. And all the dorms are unisex.

Camino blog

D-Day minus 1

I got up at 4:30 this morning, though I didn’t finally go to bed until 1:30.  And I’d had a 2nd glass of wine.  I slept like a log.

We left for Dublin at 4:54, but we had to turn back after a couple of blocks down the road – the boss wasn’t certain she’d shut the front door behind her, because she was concentrating on getting the dogs into the car.

Of course the front door was firmly shut, so we finally got away at 1 minute to four.

The journey to Dublin was completely uneventful.  The radio was awful:  the dawn chorus was on RTE 1; raucous modern music on RTE 2; Lyric had jarring piano pieces; nothing on the other stations either.

We made the airport by 6:40.  I was through security by 6:55.  Then I realised that I hadn’t printed off a hard copy of my boarding pass.  Will the phone version do for Ryanair?  Once I could use it to get past the boarding pass gate I felt a little more confident, but still not certain.

I actually asked a passing Ryanair member of staff, who reassured me that Ryanair is bang up to date with technology.The flight was completely full, with cabin staff stuffing passenger’s bags in the overhead lockers as fast as they could, to get us away on time.  I slept through most of the flight, only really awaking when the plane hit the runway at Sansted like a ton of bricks.

I met up with my brother, we had a bit of lunch and got the plane to Biarritz.  We met our first fellow peregrinos, all agog, like ourselves.  I slept on the flight, until the plane hit the Biarritz runway like a ton of bricks.  Ryanair definitely has standards!

The first of May is a holiday in France, even on a Sunday, so no busses to Bayonne.  Myself, the brother, an Italian and a Czech shared a taxi to the train station in Bayonne.  Only train goes at 9 o’c.

Ricky and I explored Bayonne for a couple of hours.  It’s a beautiful and ancient city, going back to Roman times.  I have lovely pictures, but I can’t upload them at the moment.
Anyway, we went down to the local, had two pints, and ‘now it’s time for bed’ said Zebedee.  It’s been a long day.
Tomorrow, we start walking.