Pamplona to Puente La Reina - May 11th

Date Added: May 12th

Date updated with photos: 2 on May 12th

I am trying something new to get around problems I have had uploading my blogs. I will write and upload the narrative and add photos time permitting when I am online and able to do so at least that way I will keep the blogs "flowing". I guess if blog readers are interested they can check back later for photos. As time permits I will sort out the other blogs I have written and get them uploaded. I finally figured out it doesn't like to upload photos in one go and that means I can't do the blogs while offline like I have been doing. Also, the pictures are just taking too long to upload. Since the other day's blogs are already completely written with my offline blogging tool, not much I can do about those except rewrite them and upload before adding the pictures. Well something to do in my down time early June when I am in Zamora doing my Hospitalera thing. It has been exceptionally hot (31 degrees in the shade today!) and I have had to make sure to leave early to get as much walking in before it gets too hot. Many perigrinos were up and on their way before 6 am this morning but I only managed to be on the road by 7. Today I am headed to Peurte la Reina which is 23.8 km (25.5 km adjusted for altitude) from Pamplona.

 

The biggest a challenge of the day, aside from not overheating, is to climb Alto de Perdon, which is a 790 m high climb. Actually, compared to Day 1 this would be a piece of cake, if I were able to tolerate this heat better. I took a "selfie" when I reached this point and posted that on Facebook.

Going down on the other side was quite treacherous and steep. The countryside was beautiful though and very pretty fields growing various crops. The nice difference here in Spain is that folks live in the town and farm outside so there are very few houses in between the towns. In Canada, we would have a long lane way and a farmhouse every mile or two. Not here.

 

In order to manage the heat I wet my bandana and put it on my head under my sun hat. Whenever I started to feel the heat getting the best of me I found some shade, wet the bandana again and rubbed my face with the water and then returned it to its spot. This helped a bit, but it was at slow trudge to Peunte la Reina. The town is a typical Spanish Camino town - one long street with all sorts of shops all shut because they close at 1:30 and don't open until after 5. It was 4:30 when I arrived in town looking for the Albergue I planned to stay in, (Albergue Santiago Apostol) which was on the far side of town. What I didn't realize was that it was 650 m up the top of a hill. Once I did that climb I was not about to leave to explore the town as I could not face the uphill journey for a second time that day.

 

No matter, there were lots of new friends who felt the same way. The accommodations were good and there was a nice selection of dishes for the dinner -not just the typical menu de dai. There were about 50 of us eating dinner together and the travelling group spend time bonding and giving advice about sore feet, knees and hips during the evening. Dinner was pasta for the 1st cours, eggs, sausage and fries for the 2nd and flan for dessert. Someone said that the meal was carbs sans guilt as we had used so many calories today. I could not believe the beer glass of wine I was served with dinner! I will add that picture later.c

 

I tucked myself into bed very shortly after dinner and was sawing logs by 9 pm!

 

 

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Pamplona and Journey to Saint Jean Pied de Port

Roman bridges I have seen a few of them ini Spain

This is Hostel Hemingway, where I stayed. Turns out it is in the "shopping district", just beyond the interesting part of town with all the good food. In my wanderings of today, I found some great places to eat when I come back in 3 days.

 

 

 

In front of the Running of the Bulls Statue. I traced the steps on this famous route.

Lunch was a "hamburgesa Completa".

Caught my bus at 2:30 to Saint Jean Pied-de-Port and enjoyed (with some trepidation) the view of the contryside betwwn Pamplona and St.Jean. It really is mountainous and I will be quite a challenge tomorrow when I travel tbrough those mountains.

I am not going to write too much more. St. Jean is a wonderful town and I want to get out and enjoy it. Will post a few pictures of the town in a bit but will wait until I have a shorter day to write much more content.

 

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Saint Jean Pied-de-Port

This town, in Spanish - San Juan Pie de Puerto, is the most common starting point of all the Camino routes. Literally, "Saint John [at the] Foot of [the] Pass" it lies in the the Pyrenean foothills at the base of the Roncevaux Pass at the river Nive. It is on the French side of the border with Spain and the old capital of the original Basque province of Lower Navarre, on the original Via Trianana, the Roman road linking Bordeaux with the gold mines of Astogaga 760 km west of here.

As you can see from the Briar's Guide route map page I have included below, it is the begining of an arduous ascent to the Collado de Lepoede peak which is 1450 m above sea level, a climb of 1,265 m above the town below. It is probably the most difficult day of the whole route to Santiago de Compostela.

 

I arrived at about 4:30 and had a good amount of time to explore the town before dinner. A mid size town with (as many European cities do) an old walled part and surrounded by gentle countryside and tidy homes all looking a bit alpine. An air of excitement is in the air as there are many pilgrims in town and they all know the next day is arduous. After touring the town I decided that I should have a good and proper meal before retiring for the night and so found a very nice cafe and feasted on Entrecote with pomme frites and crepes for dessert. With local wine, of course.

 

My Albergue is a tucked into the old part of the town on the street which goes to the citatedel. There are 3 floors starting one up from the street and it is pretty typical of the private Albergues. At 16 EU a night including breakfast it is just a bit more than I will be paying going forward. My roomates ( only 3 of us of 5 have checked in as of 6:30 this evening) are a Spaniard guy of about 25-35 and an Irish girl who is maybe 25 years old.

I did a tour of the town and it is a very pretty and here are a sampling of photos to give you a sense if it,

 

 

 

 

As I was explaining at the start of this blog, tomorrow is a difficult day and it is forecast to rain and perhaps visibilty on the mountain will be an issue. I am going to get up at 6:00 am and be on the road when the sun rises at 7:00. Hopefully I will have no problems and be able to share some wonderful mountain top photos when I am next online.

 

 

 

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Arrive Madrid and Travel to Pamplona

I am pretty tired and in need of a good night's sleep, so will write just a short blog before turning in.

 

My flight and transfers went like clockwork and I managed to landed and clear customs in the 1.5 hour window between the flight's arrival and my bus to Pamplona - so I am pretty pleased. It is actually funny how easily they clear you in customs and how quick the hole thing takes imparted to the U.S. And Canada. Pretty much just wave your passport at the Security guy as you breeze through and out. I had to change terminals to catch my bus to Pamplona and that was easy peasy as well - and took barely 10 minutes. I was worried I might not catch the bus as there was only an hour and half between the plane landing and the bus leaving, but as I say - it all went like clockwork.

Hotel Hemmingway has proven a winner. It seems that just about everyone I have met here are Pilgrims who have travelled the 3 days from Saint Jean Pied de Port. I won't be staying here when I return via foot, but it is kind of nice to be eased into things in a hostel room with 5 other Pilgrims instead of a large dorm room of 20 or more, which is more typical of the Albergue's I will be staying in. This is a bit expensive at $22 EUR per night - I am hoping to keep to the 8-12 EUR range, except for a couple of "rest nights" when I feel I need a break from a room full of snoring Perigrinos. Probably the Municipal Albergue will suit for next time.

 

I was fed a few tales of fear and concern by my room mate Pilgrims - from all accounts the day's trek from St. Jean to Roncesvalles is going to be tough. One Pilgrim, a Quebecois fellow, told me that I should definitely send my pack forward rather than carry it as he thought it to be much too difficult otherwise. He told me a sad tale of not finishing until 11 pm and having the Albergue full when he arrived. The Hospitalera drove him to the next town where there was room, so it did turn out good enough for him, but it did cause him a great deal concern as he tried not to get lost in the dark. The 3 Spanish Pilgrim Ladies told me that with the unexpectedly warm weather there had been 2 deaths due to heart attacks.

I looked up the Saint Jean Pied de Port to Roncesvalles section in my Guide book, where they provide an "altitude adjusted" distance and they recon that while it is onlly 25 km, it is the equivalent of doing 37 km. I had better get an early start - I sure don't want to be walking in the dark and get lost in the woods outside Roncesvalles.

I had a brief walk around this evening trying to find something substantiial for my evening meal (I did not eat all day as I went straight from plane to bus to Hostel and then shower)... so by 6ish I was getting really hungry having just had peanuts and a chocolate cereal bar since breakfast. It is actually difficult to get a proper dinner in Spain much before 9 but I did find a place where I could order a club sandwhich, Spanish style, which looked neat and featured a cutlet of pork, bacon, tomatoe and mayo instead of the usual.

The Spanish have their own meal cycle - and usually have their big meal at 1:00 during their time off for Siesta and have a late light supper at 10 in the evening - so it is sometimes hard to find a restaurant open for serving a meal in the early part of the evening as most of us Pilgrims would prefer. The sandwich was several notches up from the usual bocadilla with ham just slapped on bread - so I was happy to have it.

I am utterly exhausted and note that my room mates have already turned in for the night. Really, I haven't had a proper sleep since Monday night and even that was short as I was up late getting things in order. I will need to upload the rest of the Pamplona pictures tomorrow. I am going to do a bit of sight seeing in the morning - and also a trip to the post office to mail forward the extra stuff I brought along for when I am working in the Albergue in Zamora. I have bought my tickets to Saint Jean Pied de Port and will leave at 2:30 pm and be there within the hour - so lots of time to settle into my next Albergue, see the town and get an early night. I will squeeze in an hour to blog I hope.

Buenos Noches!

 

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Another Spanish Adventure - Camino 2015

 

Ok, for those of you who had been following my blogs way back in the years prior to 2012 get ready to once again pop by and visit regularly - because I am going to make it a priority to do a blog each day. You may remember, I posted almost obsessively in my "Toronto is My Town Blog" for over 3 years and then in Apr - July 2012 I posted almost daily to this blog as I travelled through Europe and but sadly during my 2013 Peru trip I failed miserably to blog much at all... well since then my attempts at blogging have been sporatic at best while I travelled to Costa Rica in 2013 and Cuba in 2014. I could blame life events or just being busy with life... but no matter - today I turn over a new leaf as I sit in airports waiting for my flights - firstly Delta 3746 to JFK, which after a 3 hour layover will proceed to Madrid, Spain and arrive at 9:15 am local time.

So "Spain again", you say. "Why Spain again and where in Spain this time?" Lets go back and recap last time I walked the Camino.

In 2012 I flew to Seville with my friends Barb and Ian and we three walked the Via de la Plata route to Santiago de Compostela. The VDLP joins the Frances route (the most popular route) in it's last 3rd at Astoraga. In all, we walked about 850 KM, but we did have to miss a bit in the middle, about 250K, due to time constraints and injury. After the trip, Barb and I travelled to Finisterre ("The End of the World" - the most westerly point in Spain) and Ian headed to Bilboa before returning via Barcelona. When Barb headed to Madrid and then home, I flew to Barcelona for a few days then hopped a train and started my 2 month France / Italy wanderings. When I finished the Camino last time, I really doubted I would do it again. My feet hurt big time and I was thinking of other places which were higher in priority for me.

Well a few things have changed for me and I now hear the Camino calling. My feet are no longer hurting and funny - I seem to not remember how badly they did hurt - I guess a little like childbirth, eh? I decided I need to walk and meditate, walk and contemplate/think things through, walk and talk with new Camino friends and walk and listen to music, and walk and see beautiful Spanish countryside, and walk and decide what is next for me. I am at a bit of a cross roads - am I retired or not, new roles exchanged for old (my parents now gone I have a bit of caregiver fatigue or maybe it is a form of empty nest), once again single... (don't ask)... so just seemed right to start the Camino Frances from the beginning at Saint Jean Pied de Port and walk the Frances piece that I missed. There is a serenity that comes from a pattern of walk, shower and wash clothes, socialize and eat and drink wine with other Pilgrims, sleep and then repeat for 40 days which can't be obtained any other way.

 

For this trip I have an extra adventure in store. I have volunteered to be a Hospitalera at an Albergue from June 1 - 16. An Albergue is a special type of low cost hostel which is offered only for Pilgrims to stay one night while walking the Camino. The Spanish "Friends of the Camino" (Federacion Espanola de Asociaciones de Amigos del Camino De Santiago), and other Confraternities such as the Saint James Confraternity in Britian support various parochial and municipal Albergues which are staffed by Volunteers. For the most part, the volunteers staff albergues which are "by donation" - that is you are told to pay what you can. Private Albergues cost from about 8 - 12 EU and sometimes more. It is one of the things that make the 5 week trek affordable. Volunteers help to allow the donation Albergues to keep in operation and so make the Camino walk possible for those who just scrape by financially.

 

Here is a picture of the Albergue in Zamora where I will be a Hospitalera. The picture is quite misleading - it is built into a hill on the wall of the city and the door opens on the 3rd floor of the Albergue. You can read about Zamora and the Albergue in my 2012 Camino Blog here and see how wonderful the Albergue is inside. Note that I did two blog pages for this day as there was so much to see in this interesting City.

I have included a GIF of the elevation of the Camino Frances from the start at Saint Jean Pied de Port to Santiago de Compestela. The first day is not included because it is in France and the software which generated the GIF does not include it. Suffice to say the first day is going to be the most difficult as it is the highest ascent of the journey in 25 KM without any stops along the way! You can click on the image to get a larger version. Of course the Project Manager in me has mapped out each day, distances and villages/cities to stay in all on an Excel spreadsheet. I will be updating it daily to reflect actual progress - if you are interested in this detail you can go here to see it.

The weather is warmer in Spain - except in the mountain passes. Looks like I will be hiking in shirtsleves most of the time!

 

So enough rambling... I am now at the airport in New York and now that I have this blog done going to have a decent meal before I board my flight to Madrid at 7:30. I fly into Madrid and then bus to Pamplona for a day of sightseeing, then the next day bus to Saint Jean pied de Port to start my Camino the morning of May 8th. I will do another blog tomorrow night and post some pictures of Pamplona and let you know how my day of travel went.

Here is a picture of me at Finisterre taken at the end of May in 2012. While I will not be going to Finisterre this trip, I will be just as happy when I am finished my 2015 Camino!

 

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DAY 2 - Lima

Saturday May 11, 20013

The first night's accommodation was at La Castellana Hotel in the area of Miriflores, which is a touristic and relatively safe area of Lima bordering the Pacific about 40 minutes from the airport. The hotel was of Spanish architecture with a center courtyard and it reminded me of colonial times when the Conquistadors dominated. I had arrived at the hotel at 2:30 a.m. the night before and given that the hotel provided breakfast until 10:30 I was able to have a bit of a sleep in.

I was very glad that I had booked to arrive 1 day early in Lima, otherwise I would have needed to be back out at the airport at an ungodly morning hour to journey to Puno. Today is a day of leisure and sightseeing.

I had a pleasant chat with a couple from England during breakfast. They were on a several month retirement holiday and he had taken a spill on some stairs on a boat trip to Galapagos and was unable to do the trip through Peru. Instead they had spent several weeks in Quito recovering and now were catching the final leg of their tour two weeks before heading back to England. What an unfortunate event! I vowed to be careful on stairs!

I had to smile as the waiter came to take our breakfast order. He explained that the couple could have eggs, since they had booked American Plan, but I could only have bread and jam, since my breakfast was included. The coffee was thick and syrupy, but there was hot water provided so I just diluted to my liking. Sadly, I had to change hotels in the middle of this one pre-trip day in Lima and so was kind of limited to local sightseeing and a walkabout before the transfer arrived at 12:30.  

 I set off to walk the neighbourhood down to the see the ocean - a 30 minute stroll.

 Observing the chaos at each busy intersection, I could see that the drivers were practiced in the art of crossing intersections in a busy downtown street without traffic lights. If you look at the photo you will see no stop signs or traffic lights anywhere - they don't have them! These were busy streets! The method seemed to be for cars to nose into the intersection and if oncoming traffic didn't stop to make way then the horn was used to signal a request for the other direction to have a go. It seemed that everyone was well trained as cars wove their way through intersections quite capably. A lot more difficult for pedestrians though - as there were no signals or ways to get the cars to stop long enough in one direction for a person to actually get across the street. I just watched for locals crossing and sidled up. It seemed a little like a game of frogger.

Lima and Miraflores is perched on the side of a mountain. The views down to the beaches and coastal highway were breathtaking.

We met up with our G-Adventures Leader and the other tour participants just after noon hour. There are 7 of us on the tour, Dawn and Ron, who were from Victoria, Cheryl and Rory, two ladies from Edmonton, Cathy and Carla from San Diego and moi. With the tour leader, Manuel, we are 8. A nice cozy group and as luck would have it, all of us are around the same age. Ron was the only male in the group. If our group is representative, it seems women like to travel with girlfriends and leave the hubbys behind. I was the only single traveller - both in marital status as well as travel status.

Lima is known as a Foodie City and so Manuel suggested we go try out one of the better Chifa restaurants - Madam Tusan's. According to Manuel, Lima has a large Chinese influence and Chifa - which is a Peruvian-Chinese fusion, is a popular food in Peru.

The group at our first meal, which was called lunch but was actually larger than most dinners I would eat when out on the town in Toronto. Manuel ordered several dishes for us all to share. The feast was set out on the table and we sample of each dish. It was delicious! Also, the price was right and with drinks each of us paid equivalent of about $20.00 -- Sol/51.90 Peru uses the Neuvo Sol which is worth 2.6 CAD. I was told the price of this restaurant was very good by Lima standards and it was no dive - quite the opposite, it was fine dining with nice table linens and expertly plated dishes.

The specialty drink in Peru is the Pisco Sour. I will need to buy a bottle of pisco liquor to bring home for my Peruvian night party (in the planning!) Pisco liquor is made from distilled fermented grape juice. The cocktail is mixed with sugar syrup, lemon juice and egg white along with the liquor and is really delicious!! The first pisco sour was included in the meal.
I can't name everything I ate, but it was sort of Chinese food like - stir fried veg and meat and rice, but it definitely had its own set of flavours setting it apart from what we would be served as Chinese food here.

After the huge lunch and 2 pisco sours, we walked down the the lakefront park. Rory wanted to do some hang gliding and had seen a cliff-side location for this earlier, but the wind was not right so she was not able to go. Hopeful that today might be a better day for that we all joined her on her quest.

On our way we passed the "Love Park". Seemed like an area set up to facilitate those hormone driven teens who need to sit and cuddle and make out. The statue of a couple doing just that was the focal point, with lots of areas around for sitting and cuddling.

I left the group and Rory by the field where the wanna be air-borne set were patiently waiting for a shift in the winds and set off down the pathway to get to the waters edge. I needed some stones from the Pacific Ocean to add to my pebble collection.

On the way I saw the most curious drone vehicle flying above the buildings. I am not sure what it's purpose was, maybe traffic reports?? Anyway, it hovered and zipped back and forth a bit and then made a beeline for some distant point and I lost track of it.

There were lots of surfers in the water - everyone wearing wetsuits. It was a nice walk down from the cliffs and down to the beach. There was a walking path down from the park on top of the cliff which made going easy peasy.

Sadly, Rory was disappointed as the wind never did pick up enough to give the wind surfers the ride they were waiting for.

After a long leisurely walk I got back to the hotel in time for the welcome meeting and trip orientation. We decided that dinner was not really necessary after the feast we had so we went our separate ways - and me to an early bed to get ready for the early start the next day.

Tomorrow we have an early breakfast in the hotel and a 9:30 flight to catch to Puno. I am feeling a bit head-achy from the altitude I think but other than that I am doing ok.

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Day 1: Travel Day to Lima, Peru

Friday May 10, 2013
As I write this, it is actually Day 6 of my trip and I am sitting on a bus traveling from Puno to Cuzco in Peru. Just 2 more sleeps and I will be trekking the Inca Trail! It is a 7 hour bus ride and as I haven't been able to do much in the way of blogging as yet, I thought I would try to catch up. As you can imagine, since I haven't been spending much time blogging, I am having a great time and every minute is full of new and different things and times with fun people. You will need to wait until the Day 2 blog to hear about it though, Day 1 was just a busy and tiring travel day.

Another pre-blog comment, I am having trouble uploading my blogs from my offline blogging software, so I am not sure when you will get to read this. I don't have any time to trouble shoot the issue, but I have sent a note off to the support people and hope that they will have a simple answer. I used the software without problem last year when I traveled Europe, but they have had several major upgrades of the software since then, so perhaps I have to do something to sort it out.

In retrospect, I did not spent enough time planning what to take and getting organized. In stark contrast to my travels of last year, for which I devoted hundreds of hours planning and organizing right down to the last detail, this trip prep has been quite different. Because I am doing a G-Adventure Tour, everything has been done for me (used to be called Gap, somehow they lost the "ap" from the name), and so except for getting myself to the starting point in Lima, everything has been arranged. So not much to do to get ready I thought - but in hindsight I could have been better prepared. I forgot a few things I would have liked to have with me, but since none of those things were essentials, I guess I am doing just fine.

The flight consisted of 2 legs - the first leg, Toronto to Atlanta was via a tiny plane sitting only 4 across. The layover was not too bad - only 2 hours, enough time to find the gate for the next flight easily with only a short wait gate side before the flight to Lima.
The flight from Atlanta was relatively uneventful. I chatted to the young lad from Raleigh who was with a group of 25 young folks who were heading Peru for a month and after a trip to Machu Picchu would be studying Spanish in Cuzco. The plane landed at Lima at 10:30 in the evening and dumped hundreds of tired travelers from the Airbus to stake out a place in the long, long line through customs. Someone said that there were 3 arrivals at that time and so the crowds were thick.
I have to say that the Lima Airport was the most disorganized and frustrating of all the airports I have been through for waiting in line to clear immigration. The airport time and motion "experts" funneled locals to the right side at the start of the line up and the tourists were put in a long line on the left. After going maybe 20 yards in this single line we arrived into the immigration hall proper and where our line started to snake left then right on the left half of the room as we made our way forward towards the customs wickets. The line on the right side, for locals, was just about empty, so at one point someone decided it was OK for tourists to use this line. I watched with feelings of frustration as I saw folks from the back of the line be directed to fill in this void. The next step was to merge the two lines so when my line snaked to the center, the divider was removed and now my line had to travel the entire distance to the other side.
The snaking lines ended about 10 feet from the front and turned into single file lines in front of wickets, where the rule it seemed was that chaos should prevail. There was no one directing folks to the various wicket lines and in fact as I stood and waited in the line which I thought was a good bet, I noticed the line beside me actually was serving 2 wickets and so was moving rather quickly. Being very tired and slow witted at this point I just held my ground rather than move over into a line which seemed to have twice as many people as my line. As the time passed, I noticed that the 2 agents in the other line also were able somehow to serve more people. My agent seemed to be working in slow motion, and processes half the number of individuals in the same time as the other agents to my right. **sigh**
By the time I got clear of Immigration and then customs (2 separate lines), changed my money and had collected my baggage, I was semi catatonic and just wishing for my bed. I had done some investigation on taxis from the airport and was advised to get a "Green Taxi" within the airport to assure that one would not be overcharged. I went to Information and was directed to the proper door to find the cab - and happily followed the cab driver to his vehicle. I asked the price - and he said $40 - and showed the rate card quoting $40 US or Sol 125*. So off I went.
When I got to the hotel I realized I had been scammed - there was a sign in the hotel which provided cab information - $22 to the Airport , not $40!
Oh well, I guess I should be glad that it wasn't worse than that. The hotel was all right and I had arrived in Lima safely and could have a good night's sleep. Tomorrow I would be seeing Lima and meeting up with the G-Adventures Tour group.

*The currency used in Peru is the Nuevo Sol -- 1 CAD is about 2.6 Sol.

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