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We woke up early in the morning and walked over to Barcelona Sants to catch the AVE to Pamplona. The sun was rising as we were going into the station. We passed up a group of teens that were still sitting around talking, with one of them holding on to a guitar while another was peeing on the sidewalk. They were headed home from the night out.
When we arrived to Pamplona and were headed out of the train station a Canadian couple also about to start the Camino shared there was an afternoon bus to St. Jean, so since Carmen said she did not want to waste time we decided to not spend the night in Pamplona. We caught the city bus to the ALSA bus station and bought our tickets right away. Having a couple of hours to burn we walked to a restaurant across the street from the bus station and ate lunch. I had a Tortilla Española and Carmen had authentic fresh dumplings from the Chinese owned restaurant. We then walked to the plaza to see the Monumento al Encierro (Bull Run Monument) which is an image of what it's like to run in front of the bulls during the corridas of the San Fermin festival. We took some quick photos and then headed back to the bus station. Yes, I wanted to go see the Hemingway Bust in front of the Bullring. The bus ride to St. Jean was over two hours. Carmen and I sat in the front seat so we had a great view crossing the Pyrenees and could see the driver staying on the road, inches from falling over the edge of the mountain. I hung on tight to my seat a few times waiting for the worst to happen with an escape plan in mind. Upon reaching St. Jean – I rushed us to 39, R. de la Citadelle to get our passports at the Acceuil Pelerin and to get our initial stamp. Unfortunately we had a volunteer that did not speak much English or Spanish so we just got the passport and not much more information since we were going north to do the northern route along the Cantabrian Sea and almost 100% of the pilgrims there were for the Camino Frances. The traditional starting point for El Norte is in Irun where we would be in a couple of days, but we wanted to experience walking over the Pyrenees. We quickly went up the road to #55, the Albergue Municipal where we each paid 10€ for our beds for the night which also included breakfast of coffee and toast with butter and jellies. |
I rushed us over to the albergue because I felt there would not be any beds left since we arrived on the late bus from Pamplona, but we quickly realized that there were plenty of beds since it was still early in the season. We settled down and then went out to look for dinner and to visit some shops. It was late and most shops were closing at this time. We found a restaurant right in the center of Carmen had a large salad and I had a pizza with jamon Iberico and we each had a beer and a glass of wine. After eating we had enough time to go to some shops and were able to buy some patches, stickers and Pate for our crossing of the Pyrenees the next day.
At about 9:00 pm we are tired and go to settle down and I see Carmen is on the internet with the girls…. She then tells me she has lost her shirt, I am too tired to react, I thought to myself that we will find it in the morning. |