Day 2: Roncesvalles to Larraosoana

It’s Sunday, July 14^th.  We spent the night in an “albergue”: a pilgrim hostel.  This one had 60 beds on each of 3 floors.  We had 2 great bed mates, Greta from Indiana and Fabio from Brazil, but 40 more stalls of people who spoke loudly, stayed up late, and had issues in the middle of the night.  Not much sleep!

Yesterday, we checked in, showered, and took a nap.  Paco showed up with a comb n his hair.  “Oh my gosh”, he said, “I put it there for safekeeping and totally forgot!” In the meantime, he had spoken with administrators about opening times, Mass times, morning protocols.  How embarrassing!

Sunday we got up at 5:40 am, and left the albergue by 6:10 am.  It was twilight and beautiful.  We took hillside paths and watched the fog rise over the mountains.  The resultant views were breathtaking.

We met some awesome people on our way.  Phil, from Ireland, is an entrepreneur who's a boutique manufacturer of corn tortillas and corn chips in Ireland.  Jacob's from Oklahoma and runs a bar in Lawton. Later, we met up with Greta and Fabio.  She's a Perdue  student who hails from Indiana and is backpacking through Europe this summer.  Fabio speaks several languages and is returning to Brazil after the Camino.  And so many more!

Today's recommended route was 21.9 km: 13.6 miles.  We arrived at our original destination, Zubiri,, at 12:15 PM, having left around 6:10 am.  We weren't tired, so we decided to head on further to the next town, 5.5 km further on: Larrosoana.  We got there at around 2:30 pm.  Success!

As an aside: the most popular guidebook for the Camino sets the estimated arrival time as 35 days from the date of departure from St Jean, France.  Our goal is to arrive in Santiago de Compostela in 28 days.  That leaves time to go to Finisterre (the end of the world--3 additional days), and to visit with aging relatives on the Spain/Portugal border.  We need to achieve 5 km additional distance each day, versus the stated agenda, to accomplish this goal.  We're on our way!

That afternoon, we went in search of a late afternoon lunch in Spain, as normal.  Spaniards each their main meal between 2 pm and 4 pm daily.  This small town had no open restaurants at all.  Paco was bummed.  We went to the small "supermercado" outside our albergue.  This was no "supermarket" you'd find in the US.  It was part charcuterie, part prepared foods (refrigerated and ready to microwave), and part "restaurant".  Upon ordering, we had a fabulous, huge salad with "bonito" (tuna) and local red and green peppers, plus a house-roasted chicken. With water and a bottle of wine to share, it made for a wonderful dinner.

As we ate, our friends from the Camino came streaming in.  This was the only open food establishment in town.  Soon, it was filled with people--we knew half of them or more from the walk.

The Camino is part physical, and part spiritual.  A big part of the spiritual part is the connections you make with others making the same journey with you.

Buen Camino, all!