Miles Hiked Overall: 42.4 (68.2 km) Miles to Santiago: 442.6 (712.3 km)
Steps Taken Today: 41,355 Blister Count: 0
Spanish Word of the Day: caballo (horse)
What We Learned Today: We need affirmation and when we get it, it's a good thing.
Today we walked about 7 1/2 hours. We didn't start until pretty late because after our good fortune of having lots of space to do laundry, we came back from dinner to find it had rained while we were gone and our clothes that were hanging out were soaked. So luckily the pension had a hair dryer and we spent part of the morning trying to dry our clothes. Wet clothes and a backpack don't really mix....but since we couldn't really get them dry, I attached one wet thing at a time to the back of my backpack and dried them that way.
We walked by an interesting old building. We saw some guy outside so we went to talk with him. It turns out he is somewhat of an anthropologist who is spending his life now renovating an old abbey. The building was once a fort, they believe, but they have found evidence that is was turned into a church in the 13th century. The old altar was stolen a few years ago unfortunately, but that let them see an alter that was painted on the wall.centuries ago. That was very cool.
The Camino took us through beautiful farmland again today. Pam was particularly excited to see all of the horses. We've also seen cows, sheep, chickens and a few dogs and cats.
It's too bad we didn't have the energy to explore Pamplona more...it's a beautiful city. I will definitely have to go back there, hopefully for the running of the bulls!
"There are many things in life that will catch your eye but few that catch your heart, pursue those."
Unknown
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| See stage 2 map for first 5.5 km hiked today |
We walked by an interesting old building. We saw some guy outside so we went to talk with him. It turns out he is somewhat of an anthropologist who is spending his life now renovating an old abbey. The building was once a fort, they believe, but they have found evidence that is was turned into a church in the 13th century. The old altar was stolen a few years ago unfortunately, but that let them see an alter that was painted on the wall.centuries ago. That was very cool.
The Camino took us through beautiful farmland again today. Pam was particularly excited to see all of the horses. We've also seen cows, sheep, chickens and a few dogs and cats.
We learned of an alternative route for the final push into Pamplona. We decided to take it since it went along the river and was so pretty. However, it didn't have all the pretty common Camino arrows for us, pointing us in the right direction. Every once in a while we'd see an arrow but then for a long time we'd walk and walk and see nothing and so we'd start to get worried we had lost the path. Finally we met backup with the Camino and the arrows and we could breathe easy as we walked through Pamplona. That's why we say affirmation is good because we really have come to rely on the yellow arrows to keep us pointed in the right direction!
All along the Camino the route is marked with bright yellow arrows. These are the work of Don Elías (1929-1989) who was the parish priest in O Cebreiro in Lugo and studied the history of the St James Way pilgrimage to Santiago in depth. In 1984 made it his mission to revitalize the Camino. He formed groups to restore and maintain the trails, and he personally went and painted yellow arrows along the trail at crossroads and places where people might potentially go the wrong way. He also traveled extensively in Europe promoting the Camino and how important it was for people to make this pilgrimage. Today there are still many simple spray painted arrows, but there are also arrows in bright ceramic tiles and other media as well. Without all the arrows we would have been soooo lost. He was a genius! Now you know the significance of the yellow arrow on the right side of the blog.
All along the Camino the route is marked with bright yellow arrows. These are the work of Don Elías (1929-1989) who was the parish priest in O Cebreiro in Lugo and studied the history of the St James Way pilgrimage to Santiago in depth. In 1984 made it his mission to revitalize the Camino. He formed groups to restore and maintain the trails, and he personally went and painted yellow arrows along the trail at crossroads and places where people might potentially go the wrong way. He also traveled extensively in Europe promoting the Camino and how important it was for people to make this pilgrimage. Today there are still many simple spray painted arrows, but there are also arrows in bright ceramic tiles and other media as well. Without all the arrows we would have been soooo lost. He was a genius! Now you know the significance of the yellow arrow on the right side of the blog.
When we got into Pamplona, we were exhausted, of course, and so were so happy to see an albergue. Just as we were walking up to the front door, a woman jumps out of a taxi with her bag, runs inside and snags the last bed! So that was a bummer! We walked and walked to the next albergue and just as we were turning onto the street of the albergue we could see a few other pilgrims heading that way in a hurry. ..so not to be outdone again we jogged (it's hard to actually run with heavy packs! ) up the street and got there before them to secure a bed...yea! I will explain about albergues in another post.
It's too bad we didn't have the energy to explore Pamplona more...it's a beautiful city. I will definitely have to go back there, hopefully for the running of the bulls!
"There are many things in life that will catch your eye but few that catch your heart, pursue those."
Unknown
