24 September - Day 3: Pamplona

Distance: 9 km

Most hostels - especially the public ones - have the policy that everyone must leave before 8-8:30am. This one was not the exception.

We got up at seven and went down to enjoy a leisurely breakfast and met another couple of bicigrinos, from Cantabria, who were going to do the trip from Roncesvalles to León, since they had already done from León to Pamplona (this is another thing some people does: they divide the Camino in stages that they do in several times, due to time limitations).

At 8:30, the hospitalero came to say good morning and good-bye, and two cleaning ladies were there, ready to start cleaning. Usually, the hostels remain closed until the afternoon, when they start receiving new pilgrims.

We had plenty of time; in the main square of the town, there was a band preparing to play on the streets, but not until 10:30, so we decided we would not wait and start our ride to Pamplona.

The Camino here was great; it is part of the park I mentioned yesterday, which goes alongside the Arga river and it extends to, through and beyond Pamplona. It's so pretty, with the clean river, trees and bushes on the sides and a path for walkers, runners, skaters and bicycles. Such a beautiful idea (http://www.pamplona.es/parquefluvial/es/index.asp), when will we do something similar in Costa Rica?...

Of course, in less than 20 minutes we were already by Puente de la Magdalena, the entry point to the old part of the city, passing then the Gateway to France. We wandered a little on the small, narrow streets when Oscar called already from the Madrid airport.
We found the Hostel Jesus Maria (municipal one), but it was closed until 1pm, so we just kept exploring the city; we went to Estafeta street, where we sat and had a coffee while imagining the bulls of the encierro running on that street; then the Plaza de Toros, and a very nice pedestrian avenue (San Ignacion?), where there is an sculpture of the encierros.

This is the closest I'll ever be of the Pamplona bulls

Then, on to plaza del Castillo, full of cafes and we stopped at Café Iruña (where Hemingway would hang when in town), with a fantastic decoration.

Café Iruña

When it was almost one, we returned to the hostel and there were already a few people registering. This hostel has 112 places, arranged in sets of two bunk beds, with two batteries of showers and toilets, laundry, a place to store bicycles and a kitchen.

Hostel Jesus María

During the afternoon, people kept arriving. so I went to the hospitalero several times, to make sure that there was still a place for Oscar - since one cannot reserve in advance.

Oscar arrived by bus around 7:30, pulling an old suitcase, where he had his panniers and stuff. We went by a local deparment store, where he checked the bicycles they had, then to the supermarket to buy dinner and back to the hostel. There, the hospitalero first looked at my cousing with his suitcase with some suspicion - he didn't quite look like a pilgrim - but once Oscar explained, there was no problem.

At the hostel, we had been observing the other pilgrims; it seems to us that it is definitely tougher for the walkers than for the bikers. Almost everyone had at least one blister to show in their feet and, especially among the younger ones, there were several with serious muscle cramps and tendinitis. There was a young couple where the girl could hardly walk and then we overheard her say that she was going to buy a new pair of booths (ahhhh!!). We started listing nationalities: Brazilians, Polish, French, Germans, Spanish, Koreans, Italians, Canadian, US.

At 10:30, very punctual, the lights went off and an hospitalero passed around asking for silence for everyone to rest.