Day 3: From Larrasoaña to Zariquiegui (No, we can't pronounce it either.)

It's day three of the Camino and everything still works.  And better than that, I didn't lose anything today.

We wanted to get up early, but neither of our Fitbits went off.  Tina woke up hearing the 5:45 bells from a church in the tiny town of Larrasoaña.  We were the first people up and out of the albergue.  Frankly, I could have used  a few extra hours of sleep.

Our walk started in the direction of Pamplona, where we were last Friday.  The countryside was beautiful fields of wheat, fields of straw, more fields of wheat...

Beautiful.  Not a bad way to start to start your day.

We walked alone for two hours through fields and paths and little towns.  I was jonesing for a cup of coffee, but there was nothing open anywhere.  In the middle of nowhere, next to a vacant old agricultural building, there was a stand run by a "Basque-American" named Dan with coffee, fruit, yogurt, eggs, Spanish Omelettes, you name it.  It was all free...  That's called a "donativo".  Pay what you want, it all goes to charity.  Dan had a picture of himself with Martin Sheen during the filming of "The Way."

We got two cups of coffee and two bananas and enjoyed talking to Dan about home and his time living in Idaho.  Then, our friends from the Camino showed up: Phil from Ireland, Brigitte and Mark from Connecticut, and Luigi from Italy.  We all started walking together.  I regret not getting a photo of Dan's stand.

 We got to Pamplona at about Noon and said "That's it?"  The San Fermines finished late last night, and if a city could have a hangover, Pamplona did.  Stores were still closed.  Water trucks were washing down the streets.  Some of us decided to stay and we decided to push on.

Five kilometers beyond Pamplona, we said good bye to Phil, our friend from Ireland, in the town of Cizur Menor.  It was a cool looking little town, but we wanted to push on.

We walked another six kilometers, uphill to the town of Zariquiegui.  Honestly, there's nothing here but two albergues and a really good bar.  We checked in and showered and
went to have lunch.  As we sat, all of the people that we had been with the night before showed up one by one.  Nobody, it seems, wanted to spend time in Pamplona on the Monday after.

Before we took over the next table.

The cool thing about the Camino is the opportunity to meet free spirits from around the world.  We sat with people from Croatia, Portugal, France, Canada, The US, Germany, and Spain.

After a while, Tina went off to take a nap.  I stayed.  The group grew, shrank and grew again as more pilgrims showed up in town.  Finally, at about 9, Tina showed up and made me go home.  Mom!  Do I have to?

It's 10:18 PM.  I'm sitting in the dark in the upper bunk of a room with five other people.  I should really stop clicking the keyboard so much, but this blog is important!

Tomorrow, we're going to try to make it to Estella.  It's an absurd distance, something like 34 kilometers.  I'll tell you how we make out.