Day 3 – El Camino – Zubiri to Pamplona

Zubiri to Pamplona, being drunk the night before was the worst idea ever! I was so ill and hung over it was no longer a joke.

We planned to leave at 7h00, however due to the general state of everyone’s health we left a bit later at 09h00.

Aaron had bad pains in the left knee and decided it would be best to bus it over to Pamplona. We all agreed. Matt and I started the trek, sun shining. The path was fairly flat for most of it.

We stopped in at Larrasoaña to pick up some food. We bought sardines, probably the best thing I ate that day. To avoid carrying out bags into and out of town we just chained them up to the sign post. Probably the best idea I came up with!

We walked along the river for some time. The soothing sounds of moving water really helped to get into the zone, mentally.

We passed a riverbed with pebbles and there were locals sunbathing there. I didn’t get to take photos though.

We then climbed a steep mountain only to come down again straight away, it seemed like a really pointless part of the path.

As we continued, a small village rose on our right. We figured it was part of greater Pamplona. There was a steep descent here and the pressure on the front part of my feet was incredible. I wanted to cry but I kept moving forward and made my visual marker.

At the bottom of the hill it was a medieval town, called something like Allava, a beautiful little village that went directly into Pamplona.

We caught up with Aaron at a bar in the centre. There we discussed the plan of attack for the night as we had nothing reserved and most places were already booked out.

I phoned up a hotel in Huarte (7km from the city centre, in the direction that we came). They said they had vacancy for us in a triple room. The price was 20€ each for the first night. The second night would fall on the festival of San Fermin and the price was 42€50 each. At least we didn’t sleep in the park as we discussed.

We bought our gear for the festival. The compulsory white pants, red sash and red scarf. Check out photos in tomorrow’s post.

When we got to the hotel it was beyond our imagining it was so nice, a bit of a luxury for us on our pilgrimage to Santiago.

We had Paella con Pollo and deep fried mussels for dinner. To wash it down we had beers and Kalimotxo. Mmmm.