Day 5–Villamayor de Monjardin—An Uphill Climb—4/26/2024

Before leaving Maneru, I stopped at a nearby café for an egg sandwich, OJ and coffee con leche. It was then onto smaller villages like Cirauqui, Lorca and Villatuerta which seemed pretty empty with just one lunch spot in Lorca.

I stopped for a lunch of bean soup while in Estella. Siggy from Austria had a hamburger, and Taru from Japan had octopus. It seems like you can get some really interesting food here in Spain.    

Shortly after leaving the town of Estella, we came to a monastery in Irache that had wine flowing from one of the spigots outside the church along with another spigot of water. Pilgrims were invited to take a sip and not a whole bottle, like some did. It was adjacent to the Bodega Irache winery that supplied 100 L of wine per day for this amazing offering.  People on the social Camino websites were heavily criticized for taking more than a sip.

From here, it was an uphill journey through many mustard fields and wheat fields until I came to the Villamayor de Monjardín where I selected the Albergue Oasis Trails to stay the night.

It then began to intermittently rain while I tried to dry out my clean clothes, socks, and shirt and towel.

This was the first Albergue that I experienced the host offering a prayer before the pilgrim dinner and the dinner was kind of a gloppy one pot Thai curry peanut meal and not like the amazing three course pilgrim meals I had had at other places.  I hope this is not a trend.

Afterward, they invited the pilgrims to attend a prayer session in the meditation room. It turns out that this group is an ecumenical  Christian group with roots out of the Netherlands.

There were two hosts: David from the Netherlands and Sara from Virginia. 

During dinner, I sat by David and he told me how this place had changed his life from one of depression and decadence to one of happiness once he found this holy place for him. he described how he started his hiked on the Camino just because he couldn’t think of anything else to do. He spent the night at this Albergue.  The following day he left, but was driven to return due to an overwhelming compulsion and inspiration that changed his life. he has been volunteering here ever since that first hike on the Camino over three years ago.

The showers were hot, but the night was cold in the rooms and I was so glad they had blankets here. My luck is holding out with that situation.

They had offered bag breakfast, but I chose to hike on to the next village for a hot breakfast.

Day 4 to Maneru—a lone red poppy amid the green—April 25, 2024

I was the last one to leave the Auberge after sleeping in until 8:30 AM. I guess I needed that after a long hike yesterday.

Around the corner from the was a café that had a scrambled egg sandwich, juice, and coffee, which was what I needed to get in my step for the next destination.

Monument to the Camino Pilgrims in Obanos

Many villages have these public fountains. I’m using my Steripen, but I probably don’t have to throughout Spain.

It was a continuous climb up to alto del Perdón, which was lined with windmills. 

At the top, there were two monuments one was for the Peregrino Pilgrims that were made of metal. 

On the other side of the road, there was a rock memorial to all of the villages that were pillaged during the Franco regime. Each rock represented a village that was wiped out.

From there, it was a pretty steep drop down to Uterga I enjoyed the stop for some coffee and orange juice.

I continued on to Punta la Reina and saw the old bridge.

I continued on to Mañeru where I stayed at the Aubergue el Cantero.  Here are some pictures of the accommodations there including a Templar knight.

Rosalin was a very gracious host and made sure I had a bottom bunk along with real sheets and a blanket.

She also hosted a delicious dinner that included lentil soup or salad, pork loin, or chicken, and ice cream dessert and of course, a couple of bottles of wine for the table. I enjoyed my water and picked the soup and pork.

There were some familiar pilgrims at the table, including Siggy from Austria— he was an expert with Google translate since he only spoke German—the Croatian couple and the two Chinese women from Kirkland, Washington—my hometown: Maan and Amanda.

 

Day 3 to Zariquiegui—No Bulls in Pamplona—April 24, 2024

On day 3 of my Camino Santiago hike, there was no running of the bulls as I passed through Pamplona. Hiking was fairly easy since it was mostly downhill.  I walked 32 km to Zariquiegui only because the aubergues in the earlier town of Cizur Menor at 25 km were closed.

Along the way we passed by some 12th century Romanesque Abby Ruins near Illaratz

It was raining a bit so we stopped at this café, just across the bridge to have some tasty breakfast as well as warm up. 

We then came into Pamplona where we saw a historic milling building that has been restored.

It was a long walk through the streets of Pamplona by following the painted yellow arrows, the Camino Santiago icon tiles and metal icons as well.

I detoured through Pamplona to see the street where they do the annual running of the bulls, the Plaza de Toros and the street named after Ernest Hemingway.

Plaza del Toros

Empty running of the bulls street.

Same street during the running of the bulls.

While walking through Pamplona, I met up with Boris a French guy and CPA and we navigated our way through the city after seeing the street where they do the running of the bulls.

I stopped by a field full of peas and grabbed a handful to eat for my walk up to Cizur Menor and enjoyed the views of the many mustard fields. I was planning to stay at one of the albergues there as Boris continued on to the next village.

It was not to be. Both Aubergues were closed.  It was another 6.1 km to Zariquiegui that had an aubergue with only 18 beds.  I was hoping that they would have room, and they did.

I met up with Boris again and we had dinner along with Ila from Sweden. She had written Swedish guidebook about the Camino and was also a medium. 

She told us the story of when her father had died. A little bird appeared, and again when a friend of her’s died, the same bird appeared.    Today she saw the same type of bird and wasn’t sure if it was a message from her dad or from her earlier friend who had died.  As she told us this, she received a text message that another friend had just died. But now she thought it was about the friend that had just died that day.  Talk about a downer for a story during dinner time.

The washers and dryers were going full-time with the family that had taken over one of the dorm rooms.

Once again, the showers were hot and wonderful, and the bed was comfortable and even had real sheets instead of the disposable ones.

Day 2 To Zubiri in the SNOW!—4/23/24

After a chilly night in the basement, I got up to leave and I saw that it was snowing outside, so I decided I’d better buy a poncho from the folks here in Roncesvalles.

That was a good decision since it was windy and snowy all morning as we made our way to the second stage city of Zubiri, some 22 km away and the 2nd of 33 stages of this journey.  The total ascent was just 250 m.  This was an easy day compared to the previous day despite the snow.

It was better to have snow since we didn’t get wet as we headed our way along the Camino to Zubiri.  

After walking through the snow for a bit, we came to this café that was in a the Erro village  called Café San Juan. I went inside and had a delicious potato frittata along with OJ and coffee con Leche.  The best part was warming up inside while eating and later enjoying the bathroom.

In this area, the trail was away from the road. Today over 80% of the trail was away from the roads which made for some enjoyable hiking in the snow.

The snow had dropped off as we came into Zubiri which was at a lower elevation at 500 m compared to 960 m at Roncesvalles.

I stayed at the municipal Aubergue called Antigua Escuela and cost €14 which included a much-needed blanket.  

They did not serve a pilgrim dinner here so we went to a nearby café Camino, where I met MK from Boston, Jenny from London, and Siggy from Austria, and a couple from Japan who were at the end of the table.  I would see several of these people during my travels.