Episode Transcript
DAY 3 MORNING BEFORE WALKING
Day three in Zubiri leaving for Pamplona, just standing on the bridge – the Romanesque bridge – on the way out of town. It's just past 7:00 o'clock.
We got up a little bit earlier today as it's supposed to be really, really hot. Actually loads of people have left already, so we are the laggards, but that's OK. It's definitely a lot cooler in the mornings, so hopefully we get some benefit out of that this morning.
We forgot our sticks already, so we had to go back, but better to do it one minute out of town rather than an hour in. And now we walk and we try and find the first place that has hot coffee… We are on the coffee watch now.
DAY 3 SUMMARY
Hi everyone, and welcome to Is This The Way, a podcast where we walk the Camino de Santiago. I'm Francesca. And I'm Gaven. And it's Day Three… Day three of many to come. Yes, many days. And we're walking from Zubiri to Pamplona, which is probably the most famous of all the places that we go. I guess the most widely known place. If you were going to say to someone, “we're going to Pamplona” in any other context, most people would know where that is. Particularly because of this particular famous thing that we actually experienced.
The guidebook says today you follow the Arga River, visit medieval churches, Gaze at Pamplona’s Gothic cathedral and see where the famous bulls run. Yeah, and because the bulls are running, the most you'll do is gaze at the cathedral. Because you can't go in - because everything's closed for the running of the bulls, including churches, cathedrals and albergues. So there are no cheap accommodation options or services for pilgrims. Yeah, but luckily we stayed in the town and I think got to experience some quite fun stuff because it was the final day of the San Fermin festival, which is the running of the bulls.
So the running of the bulls is also known as the Fiesta de San Fermin and it's celebrated from July 6th to 14th each year in which six bulls are released daily to run a course through the city and create havoc I guess. And we arrived on the afternoon of the last day, so I think the last bull had run in the morning, and then everyone was in party mode when we arrived in the afternoon.
We talk about this in our in the next section, but everyone's dressed up and apparently an estimated 3,000,000 litres of wine are imbibed during the festivities. I don't think we contributed. We did drink a beer, I think. Yeah, we contributed 0.1 litre of that.
So it's a really fun party atmosphere. It's quite hectic. Lots of streets are closed with parades and things. Lots of the stores have cheap beer on sale outside. It's definitely even after two days of walking a little bit jarring to come back into a bigger city and to have it be so full of noise and so hectic. Yeah, so we probably weren't the best partygoers at the time, but I imagine if you came specifically for the festival then you would love it.
And of course, there's a lot of Hemingway lore there as well, so there's some a really nice bar, Bar Iruna that we went to, which is like beautifully decked out. It's really nice inside. That was good, when we got in, it was a really hot day. So when we got into Pamplona, it was nice to sit there in the shade, have a bite of something to eat and a cold drink.
I guess winding back a bit – when we left Zubiri, funnily enough the first thing the guidebook says is that you walk along an unpleasant industrial stretch past a magnesium factory and to fair it's like this pretty this huge factory on the horizon as you're leaving town. But I didn't think it was unpleasant. I actually thought it was quite fascinating as someone who doesn't really see... I imagine if you had to see that every day, it might not be so pleasant. But I thought it was kind of interesting. It's probably not one of the most scenic parts of the Camino, but it was interesting. I also wouldn't call it unpleasant. I'd just call it interesting and something different. And you're past it in like 10 minutes anyway. But yes, I guess it is like pumping out lots of smokes into the atmosphere and big piles of magnesium everywhere. But anyway, interesting enough and as you say, you're past it very soon.
The day is quite short and you arrive into the outskirts of Pamphlona quite early. So actually it wasn't a super memorable day in terms of really iconic natural landscapes or anything. No, it was nice walking along the river, so that was nice and shady. It was flat. Where the last two days have had ups and downs. So it was a very chilled, easy day.
So today was, according to the guidebook, 21 kilometers, which is pretty much spot on to what we walked. They rated as a difficulty one out of three, and I'd probably agree with that. I think on our scale out of 10, I'd probably make it with two. Yeah, it was very easy. It wasn't long, it was very flat. Very chilled. Lots of places to stop along the way for a coffee or a snack. We stopped at a little place by the river, I think. Remember, there's like a bridge that came over the river and we stopped there and just sat next to the water for a little bit. Yeah, that was really nice. You can't miss that one. I can't remember what the name is off the top of my head, but it's the only place where you come across the river after walking down one side in the morning. Yeah. So you come over the bridge and then the cafe is right there and everyone's basking in the sun.
I guess one of the lessons that we learned today is that we left our sticks in the hotel in the morning and then we left our sticks again at the vegetable stall in the afternoon. One of our top tips that we got out of this was we had to start coming up with a and I can't say this properly – mnemonic – i.e. some phrase that you say to remember your stuff.
So my phrase was BTS. Not just a very cool k-pop band, but it was bags... What was it? It was bags… I kept saying it all the time. It was bags, tight shoes and sticks. So I would always be like let's go, BTS. So I’d always be thinking of bags, tight shoes and sticks. But then you came up with a different, interesting one.
I don't think I can say my one. I don't think I can spell it – it would give us a really different rating. Mine was see you next tapas.
I'd say BTS and Gaven would say see you next tapas. And then we would try and remember to bring our sticks on the back of that. Yes, because it reminded me of the things that we said when we forgot our sticks. True. Expletive. Expletive. That was one of our big takeaways that actually helped us. And I think there was only maybe one other time after that that we forgot. So it worked. See you next tapas works. I think we still lost them a couple of times after that. But somehow we made it through. Usually remembering before too long. I think it was usually me that forgot them as well.
Yeah, I never forgot. BTS was a foolproof mnemonic. I can't say it… Whereas mine was more like a retroactive response mechanism. When you realize half a kilometer down the road that you've forgotten your walking stick, that's what you would say to yourself.
So with the running of the bulls, accommodation gets very expensive in the town itself in Pamplona. You're still going to walk through Pamplona no matter what you do, but you may want to go on to the next little town afterwards, which was Caesar Menor, which will have much cheaper accommodation and it'll be much quieter rather than staying in the middle of Pamplona. We stayed in the Pamplona because we thought that would be interesting, but it was very expensive compared to anywhere else we stayed.
OK, great. Well, let's see how we got on.
DAY 3 AFTERNOON AFTER WALKING
So that's the end of day three. We're sitting outside a church in a square in Pamplona, which is probably one of the quietest places in Pamplona. Well, there's still quite a bit of background noise and people around drinking.
It's because we've arrived at the final day of the running with the Bulls festival. The running of the Bulls. Sorry, running of the Bulls festival… Sorry a lady is trying to sell us something. I think she's looking for a tour group. I see. So yeah, everyone, everyone except us is dressed in…
I think she's looking for a group that are going to go on a tour. It’s fair enough asking us, because I think as I was saying, we're the only people not dressed in…
Everyone is dressed fully in white with like a cool little red neck tie and a red belt / sash. Except me and you. I've got a yellowing white shirt. And I've got a pink one, so blend of white and red. But to try to try and buy something white today, but I couldn't find anything.
So should we go back to the start of the day then?. We started the day by recording our introduction and then realizing we lost. We left our walking sticks behind. And we lost them again later in the day. I think it's one of the things that we now need to keep reminding ourselves. Do you have your bag and do you have your sticks? That's kind of essential. It’s so easy when you're carrying so many things and trying to juggle and get change and find things and you put the stick down because it's in the way of everything when you're not walking. Luckily when we lost them again, which was at the market and the people at the fruit and veg stand kept hold of it. When we remembered like 5 minutes later and went back, they kept it for us. So that was good. It’s something to expect that you’ll leave something behind or lose something.
We've been making this long list of all the things we were going to buy from Patagonia when we got to Pamplona because we'd seen somewhere that there was a Patagonia here. In the guidebook. And then when we arrived, there was no Patagonia.
Anyway, we're getting ahead of ourselves. We went on our walk today, which was really pleasant. Yeah, very easy generally today. For something that says it's flat, it also has quite a few uphill stretches, but nothing like the last two days. You follow the river and most of the way kind of winding on and off the river around the place. Yeah, it was really peaceful. It was really quiet. There are all these like fields of hay and then the water of the running of the river. There’s a nice coffee stop just by the river next to a bridge, which is good. Then you listen to the water run all day.
We had this really peaceful walk in the morning and then as you start to walk into Pamplona, it gets more and more chaotic and you can just feel party vibes, which is great. It's really good that we're here to experience it because it is literally the biggest day of the year. It's the closing of this festival. Everyone's having a great time. They're selling €1.00 beer in the street. Everyone's having fun.
But it's really difficult for pilgrims because I mean all the albergues are closed, the cathedrals closed, everything is closed – especially all the pilgrimage related things. Everything except the bars are closed. We've had a nice drink. We went on our Hemingway Tour because this is quite famous from The Sun Also Rises. There's like Cafe Iruna that we've been for a drink, and the hotel La Perla, which places that he frequented when he was here writing – neither of which are quite as nice as I imagine they were in their heyday. But we're able to get our pilgrimage stamp from the hotel, which is really lovely. Cafe Iruna was nice when we got here, a nice shady seats to sit in and a cold drink and a snack when we arrive, which is good. And the bar inside looks quite cool. It seems like the hotel has become a more generic hotel. It doesn't have a nice kind of classic bar or anything. There's a bar in the basement. Which seems like a bit of a loss when you're like sitting on a nice square.
I somehow got it into my head that we were going to have this lovely afternoon sitting in the bar of the hotel, so I went to Zara to get some slightly nicer clothes. I felt so bad, so I was standing in the queues stinking up the place – I was so sweaty. You had a fun time waiting for me out the sun.
Meanwhile, I waited for about 6 hours in the sun outside, about the longest time I think you'd ever take to try on a T-shirt. It's the queue – the longest queue, which I literally stunk in the whole time. It was baking hot outside, even in the shade. I'd completely finished off my water. The mounted police came past - two police on horses and they're taking photos and getting all the kids to come up and pat the horses, so that was really nice. And there was a guy with his with his kids and a golden retriever, also wearing its red bandana. It was looking very, very hot. And there's public taps in the squares, so you can see the dog making like a beeline for the tap from the other corner of the square. But obviously they don't know how to turn them on. So when the dog sitting there looking underneath the thing, the guy turned the tap on, and drenched it, which was pretty amusing. But yeah, it was a happy dog once it got drenched.
We had this interlude and then went to the hotel and there was nothing there, so got all dressed up for nothing. It's been nice to see it but I think we're both quite keen to get on to a quieter stop tomorrow. It's certainly a bit jarring coming back into a big city, even after a couple of days of walking through smaller towns. The fact it was five kilometers walk in from the edge of kind of the edge of town into where we're staying just through streets with traffic and congestion and beyond the festival people, it's a bigger city as well. It just feels a little bit odd after even a couple of days of walking through small villages.
Now we've got another almost 10 days of smaller villages, so be interesting to see how we go through that as well. Then eventually we'll get a rest day. One of us was slightly ambitious with that. Yeah, you would think it was me, but it actually wasn't. It was you. I'm definitely glad we didn't take our rest day here. This was a recommendation but everything's crazy today, and I think everything would be dead tomorrow is the entire town has a hangover.
It is actually a very pretty town, but I think I’d rather have a day in a small town. Where it’s quiet and able to go out and sit out nice square and read a book or something. It’s each to their own. But we're seeking peace and quiet as a core part of our Camino. So compared to others who might be looking for more of the cultural and historical elements – which are really interesting – but that's just not our top priority. Particularly coming from a country which is a city, in Singapore, which is 100 odd kilometres each way and then you hit the ocean. Smaller towns are definitely the way to go for us.
OK, well, we've got some eggs from the local shop. Go and have some dinner - eggs and bread and and jamon yet again. We've got another 20 something kilometers in the morning. Plus three for a detour. Great, looking forward to it.
OUTRO
Thanks everyone for listening.
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Buen Camino!
