Episode Transcript
DAY 4 MORNING BEFORE WALKING
Morning of Day 4, heading from Pamplona to Puente La Reina, is that right? Yeah, that's right. And as we step outside, we're seeing a lot of revellers who've been out all night. It's currently 7:30 AM, so I feel bad that we're the early starters and they're the late, late, late enjoyers.
We slept really well, though obviously have a quite soundproofed apartment. Not a lot of the celebrations came through later in the evening, so that was good. We had some fireworks last night, which was nice, but other than that it’s all good. Hopefully an easy-ish day today and a detour to see a cool church.
You say easy but we're climbing a mountain! But we'll see how it goes. Well, it was rated two, so it can't be that bad… All right, let’s go.
DAY 4 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 Four…
And as you've heard, we left Pamplona and we made our way to Puente La Reina, which was – how many kilometers away? A lot further than the guidebook said. Which is probably our own fault for taking a detour. Which the guidebook also recommended… and underestimated.
To set the scene for today: You climb the wind whipped Alto de Perdon, detour to the mysterious Church of Eunate, ponder the mystery of Obanos and marvel at the famous bridge of Puente la Reina. And I guess we'll go through each of those things, because to be fair, we experienced something to do with every bit of this journey today – quite a lot happened, it was quite an eventful day! I'm personally still pondering the mystery of Obanos because I can't even remember what that is, but it sounds like something awesome.
So the guidebook says it's 23.8 kilometers – that wasn't quite right. I think it was a little bit off anyway, but particularly because we took a detour that it recommended to the church. So we ended up at 27.3 kilometers today, which was quite a bit more because it was a very hot, very dry day, very unshaded day. The detour, I think it says it's only a couple of kilometers, but maybe it means in each direction because we're walking for ages down these paths between fields with no one else around, and there's no markers anymore because you've gone off the Camino trail. Just wondering, like, where the hell is this church? We can't see anything. As you say, there were almost no markers either, so we were getting a bit worried that – who knows where we were going basically – and I ran out of water. And there were no people anywhere either, because you normally come across the odd Pilgrim. It was just us, actually. So if you take the detour, it's a little bit longer than expected. And I think even if you just went direct, it's still a little bit longer than what the guidebook says these days.
Difficulty: The book says two out of three. I think we probably rated about a six out of 10. That sounds about right because you walk up and down a hill, so quite a steep hill. So that's one thing that you need to do today. And then if you take this detour, you are taking quite a significant unshaded walk which adds quite a bit of distance. And I just remember feeling very hot today. So I think rather than the distance necessarily, I think it was more the conditions in which we were walking. Yeah, it was also the longest day that we've done so far - 27.3km. The first day was 25km and that was all up hill, so that was hardcore. But this one felt really dry and really long. We were shattered by the time we went into town and I hobbled on to the shops to get some snacks and things. Yeah, and I refused to do that, and sat in the shade. So by the end of the day we were pretty tired.
We'll talk about some of the interesting things that happened during the day. In the morning we had our first stop at Cesar Menor, which is the first little town just after Pamplona. And one of the things we mentioned last week was, if you happened to hit Pamplona at a busy time, accommodation is super expensive, but it's about another 5 kilometers on to get to Cesar Menor, and you'll probably find cheaper accommodation there as an option. And then you have a little bit less distance in the next day as well since the walk into Pamplona was quite short.
We stopped there to reapply blister plasters, because I think this is around the time when we're starting to get one or two cropping up. All the early optimism of “look, no blisters” – that's gone now. Now it’s like, “look, I've got a blister on my blister on my blister.” No, we're not there yet. That's still to come. But yeah, there's a nice little coffee shop just on the road at Caesar Manor, where we stopped for coffee and blister plaster application. We met – I think if you recall, we mentioned we saw one Korean lady with her nephew and then another Korean family – at this point, the two Korean families amalgamated together into one group, which was quite nice. So I got to say hi to them today and let them know we're from Singapore and had links to Asia and everything, so we had this friendship. We saw them the whole way along, I think we even saw them in Santiago at the end, maybe on our second day. So luckily we had this Korean contingent with us, which is very nice.
Yes, that was the first stop. From there, you go out through the fields and then you start climbing up the hill of what's called the Pamplona Basin. And when you start going up the hill, you really realize why it's called that, because it looks like a giant bowl behind you surrounded by mountains. So when you're going up, all you can see is giant wind turbines all the way across the ridgeline as you're climbing up. One of the cool things was we walked past a giant field of sunflowers. I've never seen that before, a whole field full of just massive sunflowers that are all like turning to face the sun, which is so cool. Yeah, and that's the thing, because you're winding up this path and then from one side it looks really green. And then when you actually hit the side where they're facing towards the sun, you're just like, oh my God, they're all yellow, bright yellow, all in a line, as you say, all facing the same way. It's like soldiers in a field. It's really quite amazing. I've never seen anything like it before. Maybe it's a much more common sight in Spain and in Europe because we do see a lot of them as we go along, but I've never seen that before and it's absolutely spectacular.
And then you climb up the Alto de Perdon, which as you say is the lip of this Pamplona Basin. And yeah, we basically walked in and amongst all the wind turbines up there. We have some friends who are involved in wind turbine technology and everything, so it was quite nice to see them up close because we haven't done that before. And the other thing at the top there that you may know if you've watched the movie The Way or looked at any kind of Camino website, you'll see this kind of like silhouette statues of pilgrims walking, that's actually on top of this hill. And you can see there's like big metal cut-outs. They're leaning into the wind. And there's quite an iconic inscription there:
“Where the way of the wind meets the way of the stars.” I think that's pretty true.
We had lunch up there right underneath one of the wind turbines and had our lunch and then started climbing down the other side. And walking down the other side, you're thinking like, can't be too far now, but that was totally wrong. And then you take the detour.
So then when you come down from Alto de Perdon, you eventually hit a town called Uterga. And this is where we basically stop for a drink. We were feeling quite tired I think at that point already. Yeah, there was an albergue there and they had like a nice little courtyard to sit in a bit of shade and something cold to drink. So sitting in the courtyard, but the sun was baking all around us and you had this great idea to basically take your socks off and put them out in the sun. And then we realized we will leverage the heatwave and essentially our socks dried almost instantly. So by the time that we went on our way again, our socks were dry. I think we either started doing that, drying our socks halfway through the day, or changing our socks halfway through the day. And it was one of the better things that we did along the way. I think because you do sweat a lot, particularly in the heat, and your socks do get wet, even having like the right kind of hiking socks. We had Marino wool socks, which are not meant to chafe and they're a lot better than when we walked before with just cotton socks. You still sweat a lot and your feet still move around and we still got blisters. But yeah, we started changing socks halfway through the day or part way through the day. And having fresh, dry socks makes a huge difference, it makes you feel a little bit refreshed as well. It does give you a bit of extra energy at that point when you're feeling a bit tired. When you're walking in heat, getting towards and beyond 40 degrees Celsius in this heat wave, if you stop the 15 minutes for a drink and just lay them out on some concrete somewhere, they'll be completely dry and warm by the time you leave. So that's one of our tips from the Camino.
Then we take the detour and head off to this church. And one of the reasons why it's quite interesting is because no one really knows what it is, but it's an octagonal church, the expectation of an octagonal church is it's linked to the Templars in some way. Is it? I just thought the expectation was it would have eight sides. Apparently Templars have an affinity of octagonal churches. I think the thought that it has eight sides. Basically it is linked to the Templars in some way, potentially. But the mystery continues to exist. They don't know… But it was really nice. I mean, after making this long detour, what felt like a very long detour, it was really peaceful inside. It was quiet. It was shady. Nice little green garden as well. So I would say it's well worth the detour. And no one really knew about it. So I think it's good that we were there. Literally no one else we talked to knew it was there, had been there, realized they'd missed it. So hence came the guidebook, this Village to Village Guidebooks is great for these kind of little things where there's something just a little bit off the path or where there's an alternate route to take. Everyone was borrowing our guidebook later in the route. Yeah, I think that's one of our key tips for the Camino. Make sure you take a guidebook and probably take our one – Village to Village Press.
And now the mystery of Obanos… So after the detour, we came back onto the actual track again and we arrived in Obanos. And the mystery is to do with some sort of Pilgrim legend where essentially two wealthy people were walking the Camino one decided to basically become a hermit – a lady and stay in Obanos. The guy killed her and then mourned her and supposedly this guy's silver covered skull is kept in the church there. So if you recall, we went into the church to find the silver covered skull and then we tried to speak in very, very broken Spanish and asked the guy where the silver skull was. Yeah. So there was a guy in the church essentially doing like a census, which we filled in and we were trying to ask him about this skull. But I don't know what the word for skull or silver is in Spanish. And eventually we found a sort of empty he pointed to an empty display case. And I think we got the gist that it was a way for cleaning at the time. Yeah, someone's got to polish that silver skull. Exactly. I find it funny if she got to there and then decided, “hey, that's it, I'm done with the Camino now. I'm just going to stay here and be a hermit.” She didn't get very far. This is like day four. True. I actually think – it was on the return journey. The return journey. Anyway, an unusual mystery. The mystery is now solved.
It's interesting though you do come across like Albergues and bars and cafes and things that are run by expats who have walked the Camino and have literally just decided to go back and move somewhere and stay there along the route. So it does happen, I guess.
From Obanos we basically straggled the rest of the way down to Puente la Reina. And the last little bit we could come through like a few farms and there's a little bit of greenery and stuff. And then we saw up ahead there's like a gate, and you could see there was a courtyard underneath the trees, and it looked like it had a bar. And I thought, “that's awesome, let's go find out where we're staying and just come back and sit here in the shade underneath these trees” – and that's where we were staying. So that worked out. It was perfect.
And while one of the highlights of Puente la Reina was a Romanesque bridge, I don't think you saw it. I saw it the next day. We saw it the next day, but basically – I went into town to get some snacks and things, but you holed yourself up in the bar and were very happy there. The place we stayed was called Padres Repardores. And as you say, it was one of our favorite stops on the Camino, and we had a really nice Pilgrim’s dinner there as well. One of our highlights I think.
There's one other thing, right? We met a couple of friends there that we then saw across the whole rest of the walk. I was sitting down in that little courtyard area having a beer, and we heard Australian accents behind me and people talking about the Pig and Whistle Bar in Queen Street Mall in Brisbane. And I lived in Brisbane briefly, so I was like, oh that's interesting. So I just turned around to say hello. I'm not usually the most social person, but I figured if we’ve got two people from Brisbane talking about somewhere I know, right behind me, I should at least say hello. So we said hello to them and end up having a few drinks together down there in the evening. And we saw them the whole way along the Camino, like a lot of stops we had lunch or we had dinners together or had drinks and things in the evenings. Was really, really pleasant to have some friends along the way. Yeah. No, it was really good.
Well, let's see how we got on.
DAY 4 AFTERNOON AFTER WALKING
Alright. Afternoon in Puente La Reina. We're sitting in a really unusual place, because we're actually sitting in a tree house. So we booked this hotel / albergue, and didn't realize when we walked in, the lady kept saying “tree house” and we're like, “what?”, and she's like “tree house”, and we’re like “we don’t know what you're talking about? Sorry.” And then she was like, “you booked the treehouse.” “Ohh I see.” I thought we're still going on some kind of crazy Spanish joke I didn't understand about something. Yeah, so we walked outside and literally there's a house, like an apartment built into a tree. It’s got a little balcony, there's a bedroom and a bathroom. Literally perched in a tree. I've never ever seen anything like it before and it's amazing. It's amazing, but actually it sways, so it's almost like being on a boat. It's a bit odd, but incredible. So we highly recommend this stop.
And even if you don't stay in the tree house, there's a really nice courtyard, lots of greenery, with the bar for drinks when you get in the afternoon, so it's nice and cool and shady. It’s got everything from the dorm rooms up to hotel rooms or if you want to splash out, a treehouse! Yeah, and it's not really splashing out, it's more than half the price of the overpriced Pamplona apartment we had during the Fiesta. If you book in advance a little bit for some of these things, it can make it a bit cheaper as well. I think this was all of €95 on our booking, which is really not bad for what it is. And we are used to paying quite a bit for hotel rooms. Well, given that that's for a room though, and then dorm beds are €15 each, a shared room with two other people is 30 something each, so that's even at 30, that's two of us, so that would be €60.00 or a treehouse for 95 euros. I think we probably got a decent deal for booking quite far in advance, though. We did all of our booking months ago before we left. True, which is why we can't remember that we literally booked a treehouse. Yeah, the woman seemed pretty dismayed that we didn't even realize they were staying in the best room of the place. The booking does say when we checked it though: Double room in tree. I guess a lot has happened since then.
Today was, after the first day of the basically climbing the Pyrenees, I think the hardest day. It's been almost 30 kilometers. Heading out from Pamplona in the morning we climbed another hill – well heading out from Pamplona in the morning we had to navigate around all the people who were still out drinking from the festival the night before. Yeah, that was a sea of white clothes with red scarves and sashes, now covered in beer and sangria. And then they had the like, pressure washers washing down the street, trying to usher out the last few, party stragglers.
So that was interesting while a chaotic city like that particularly during the festival, with people everywhere and everything kind of crazy, even without the actual bulls running on those days, the parades and things that were going on and the crazy party atmosphere. It's great and it's really interesting to see it and to be there for a day of that. And particularly the last day where everyone's going mad. Yeah, it was fun. But I don't know how well it fits in with like the rest of the Camino as a spiritual or a quieter, more internally focused pursuit kind of thing. Yeah, I agree. So we booked an apartment, but anyone that was staying in an albergue had to walk out of town. Yeah, that's a that's a really good point, during the San Fermin festival, the running of the Bulls, everything is closed for pilgrims. Everything is focused around that event only. actually we had to go hunting around to find somewhere just to get a stamp in our passports. Yeah, it was surprisingly challenging. But anyway, I mean, it was a day not for pilgrims, but I'm guessing the rest of the time it's very, very Pilgrim and friendly. And much more expensive, probably one of the most expensive things we've booked along this whole route, for a hotel room. Yeah, something super average. But now we know why, though. Why it was so much. Yeah, for sure.
So we left Pamplona behind headed out, and you popped your first blister at 5 kilometers out in the morning, we stopped the coffee Cesar Menor, the first town out of Pamplona. And had to readdress the blister situation. burst the blister and add some more blister plasters to my feet and stick a plaster over my chafing on my delicate, very inner, very upper thigh. Yeah, which is still from the very first day. Unfortunately it rubbed really badly that first day the wrong way, to the point that it's still kind of going down and gradually getting better. And we had to add some new plasters too our 4th toe, the piggy – what this little piggy went to market, roast beef – the piggy that had none. I think just because of the pressure of going up and down hills we both seem to have it on the same toe. So anyway, a bit random. Luckily our boots are really good so it's minimizing a lot of it. Once the blisters situation was all sorted, we like walked through this like incredible scenery, fields of sunflowers. And you could see the wind turbines up on the hill. Actually, you could barely see them because it smelled like smoke, we think that maybe there's been some fires nearby. It was 38 degrees Celsius, very, very hot today. There was this kind smoky haze. I mean, haze is a sort of a misleading word used in Singapore. It's basically smoke in the air, which made it a bit hard to see into the distance. Yeah. So anyway, we saw these wind turbines in the distance and we actually climbed up to them. So you climb up to this, peak. And then in the guidebook it did say the climate gets more Mediterranean on the other side. I didn't really know what that meant, but it basically means really dry, really hot, very dusty, it's really nice, olive Groves and wheat fields, very, very beautiful, but it just it does get so much hotter and it's been definitely the hottest day so far for us. Definitely a lot less shade today. But yeah, then coming down the far side like the path is all loose stones for quite a long way but down, so it takes a lot more concentration and effort to try and go through there. We kept up a really good pace for the whole day except for coming down. We slowed down a lot just because you had to keep your balance and make sure you didn't slip or twist or break anything. I would have fallen so many times if I didn't have my pole, so I think it's like the most essential thing you can bring with you. It's incredible to see quite a lot of people don't have them, but I wouldn't be able to do it without them.
I've been really tired. My bag felt someone to put stones in it overnight, my calves are really sore. I'm feeling waves of tiredness but really, really enjoying it. Like feeling very, very of calm and happy at the moment. I feel good today. It's funny, like it was hot and it was difficult and it was a long day. But I think we're just opposites, you tend to like start with a lot of energy in the morning. I tend to start slowly in the morning, but after five or six coffees, I'll have enough energy to go all afternoon.
I don't know if there was anything today that you thought about that you want to mention? Nothing particularly thought about today. You’re very good at not thinking about things, that's good. You're not going to have epiphanies and things everyday to be honest. A lot of these things kind of crossed my mind as we were leaving Singapore, before we got here, thinking about like do you want to do with your life and where do you want to go and how do you want to spend your time? So I think maybe these are some of the things we would generally think of as you're walking on the Camino. And it's a lot of things I've been thinking about for a long time before getting here that actually led to getting here as opposed to what I'm necessarily taking away from this.
What I do get from this is this is really nice to just be out and walking and not be stuck in front of computers or in offices or have the luxury of doing that and to be able to do it when you're younger and you're still fit and you're able to walk in ridiculous degree heat and you're still able to get to where you need to go without it being a horrible experience. I think that's immensely valuable to be doing that. I think the one thing we talked about was tattoos – I was going to get a tattoo to kind of signify my time in Singapore, because I was there for 20 years, that's a good part of your life. But then, maybe it would be worth getting something to commemorate the Camino as well, and the sense of peacefulness and in a calm and the time to think to yourself as you walk and don't really need to think about anything else and have to be anywhere. You don't have to do anything necessarily. But you know, it's not just the journey to Santiago at the end, maybe it's the mentality to take into the rest of your life, to keep on moving ahead and doing things and finding things that make you happy, basically, and trying to find things to do in life that you know that make you happy. A lot of us, I think, just do things that we're told to do or condition to do, or we learn to do, like work and earn more money and get better jobs and more promotions and buy more things and consume more. And all that stuff is completely fine. But, maybe you don't need that much of it. Maybe there's value in having more time for yourself, but less money. Maybe there's value in taking having more time and less things. I don't know everyone each to their own, obviously, but I think these are interesting things. So to start thinking about and these are the kind of things that Camino makes you think about when all you have is a backpack with your clothes and a few bits and pieces in it. And you could live relatively happily just like that. Certainly I’d like a washing machine. So that I have clean clothes in my backpack every day, but to some degree a lot of the things that we get caught up with, are often a bit superfluous in reality. So maybe that's my takeaway for today.
Yeah, that's a pretty significant takeaway for someone who had no thoughts today. You’re obviously externalizing a lot of your internalizing. It's really good. I think this is like my level of no thoughts. You should wait until I have real thoughts and then it gets really exciting. Yeah, sure. God, I'm very intrigued to see what comes next.
So then, where we going tomorrow? Estella La Bella? Estella the beautiful. Yes, beautiful Estella. It’s classified as a level one, so hopefully an easier day tomorrow. I just need to recover a little bit, as you can tell, I sound pretty tired, so hopefully I'll be alright tomorrow. It should be an easier day, and if we leave at our regular time, we'll have half the distance done before it even starts to get hot. We'll be halfway there by 9:00 AM. Which would actually be one of our earliest finishes ever, if we walk at our normal pace and on some flatter ground.
Let's see how it goes and find some nice stops along the way as well. Alright, well I guess that's it for day four.
OUTRO
Thanks everyone for listening.
We hope you've enjoyed Is This The Way and have taken away some inspiration and ideas about how you might approach the Camino. If you'd like to get in touch or find some more information about each episode, head over to our website: https://isthistheway.net.
Buen Camino!
