First Three Days of our Camino

Hi All,

I am writing from Pamplona where we are staying.  We started our Camino on Monday with our travels to St. Jean Pied de Port France.  We flew down on Ryan Air which was an adventure (no time for details here!) and arrived without problems only to find that the Monday after Easter is a holiday and the train schedule was different.  We lucked out and found three other starting pilgrims and the five of us shared a taxi to St. Jean.  We stayed that night in a lovely B & B and got organized.  At eight on Tuesday morning we started walking. 

The walk Tuesday over the Pyrenees was beautiful but very difficult.  We could not take the high route as there was still too much snow in the mountains.  Earlier in the week there was a fatal accident on the trail as a pilgrim became disoriented in the snow and fog and fell off a cliff.  We opted for safe and took a slightly lower route.  The day was mixed sun and periods of drizzle with temperatures in the low 50´s.  It was beautiful but grueling at the end as we climbed about 750 meters in elevation. 

We arrived at 4 at a lovely albergue in Roncevalles, Spain.  Along the way we met pilgrims from the UK, Ireland, Canada, the US, Mexico, South Africa, and Australia.  That evening we enjoyed a pilgrim dinner) basically a preset meal for pilgrims -- three courses plus (very important) wine.  We ended the day by going to a mass in celebration of the pilgrims at an 11th century monastery church.  It was incredible and emotional. 

Yesterday we got up bright and early at 6 and and started walking at 6:50 in the dark!  We stopped for breakfast after an hour at a small cafe.  It was close to freezing when we started, but the sun rose bright and warm -- we walked most of the day in sunshine and temps in the high 50´s or low 60´s.  It was a spectacular walk through the mountains to a small industrail town called Zubiri.  We stayed in another albergue and enjoyed another great pilgrim meal with fellow walkes from Finland, Germany, and other places.

This morning dawned cooler and drizzly.  We had a pretty rude guy in our albergue last night who woke us all up at 6 (we had decided to try to sleep a little later), so again we were off at 7.  We thought we would eat breakfast after an hour but found nothing open.  The first food we came across was not until 10 -- we were dying!  We arrived in Pamplona at 3.  Tom and I are staying in a small pension  for two nights and we plan to stay and see the city tomorrow.  We will begin walking again on Saturday. 

I can´t even express how challenging and rewarding we have found our experiences so far.  We have met some incredible people and are doing just fine with our walking.

We are trying to upload photos and will post them if we are successful --  Here are links to our two photo albums -- one from Tom´s camera and one from mine (with some of our last London shots mixed in.  The order is a bit mixed up as we had to get used to the spanish keyboard and public internet, but you will ge the idea: Tom´s photos from the first 3 days of our camino and Liz´s photos from the first 3 days of the Camino.

In the meantime,

Adios,

Liz