Day 5 - Biskarreta to Zubiri

752 km to Santiago de Compostela

It is 4:30 am and I am awake. My hip muscles  still hurt from yesterday but I feel so much better. I think I am still convalescing from my stay in hospital but I hope i am getting stronger every day.  My extreme fatigue from the last few days, I am sure, was caused by jet lag and lack of sleep. Since we arrived to Biskarret I have slept  8 or 9 hours. I feel better. 
Today we are walking only 10 km.  I need to get used to the 9 kg back pack.  Brenda has watched over me with lots of love and patience.  I could not do this without her. She is doing much better than me.  The physical problems we have are from the way down the hill. She has a sore knee and I have a sore toe. 
From here to Zubiri there is another, longer, steep down hill, we will go down over 800 metres in about 4 km; we will have to take  it very slow.  There are always more injuries going down than going up.

I will add an update tonight.

We made it to Zubiri. 10 km in 5 hours. Beautiful views of the mountains, sunny day, perfect to admire the wonderful world God gave us. But boy!  I really suffered the climb to the Alto de Erro.  Felipe, who went on to St. Jean yesterday,  caught up with us for a little while. I would not be surprised if he is in Pamplona by now.
In the way down to Zubiri we met two other pilgrims one from Texas and the other one from Scotland.  We are famous, they recognised us.  They have read my entries on the Pilgrims Forum. We just saw them again in front of the albergue.

My tummy is upset so I did not have lunch but I has a soup a few minutes ago. Brenda is going to Mass but I am beat,  I am going to bed.

Tomorrow we start going towards Pamplona. It is amazing, the bus took one hour, tomorrow is our 3rd day and we probably won't make it that far.

St Therese de Lisieux, I admire your holiness thru daily little things.  Those little things can be so hard.  In el Camino there are lots of opportunities.  Teach us your ways to holiness. Pray for us

Photos

Day 4 - to Biskarret

We came out of the albergue to the restaurant.  We had only black strong coffee for breakfast.  And I am very tired.
We got together with Luis, whom we met on the bus from Pamplona and with Peter from NY.  One speaks only Spanish and the other one only English.  Interesting talking with both of them. 
The man at the restaurant suggested we walk on the highway to the first town because the snow is deep on el Camino.  After an hour I am exhausted and start to walk very slow.  Two hours later Pete decides to leaves and goes ahead.  Luis stays with us I think he is concerned about us. Really nice guy.
The walk over the Pyrenees has amazing views but it is windy, it feels cold and my backpack becomes heavier and heavier.
Finally, by noon, we arrive to Biskarret. We have walked only 12 km in 4 hours. Luis says good bye.  I am going to miss his company tomorrow.  It is amazing how quickly you can make friends on El Camino.
We find a room a the Casa Rural Maitexa.  It is a really nice place.  Within 30 minutes I've had a shower and I am sound sleep.  Got op for lunch and back to bed until supper time.
At supper I find myself on an international community of pilgrims. This is the first group here this year. There are nine of  us representing Spain, Latvia, Switzerland, Australia, Italy, France and us from Canada.  Very nice and friendly dinner.  The young Italian has walked today from Saint Jean. Almost 40 km. He looks less tired than me.
Now I ready for bed.

Holy Mary, mother of God pray for us.

Day 3 - to Roncesvalles

About 760 km to Santiago
Last night I woke up at 3 am, the wife, God bless her slept like a baby until I woke her up at 6:30 am. We skipped mass, we wanted to go to the pilgrims mass in Roncesvalles.
We played the tourist.  We went to the museum on Navarra, very interesting.  Then we went to a department store called el corte ingles where I got a sim card for my phone, so now I have a Spanish phone. We ate some very fancy pintxos and we went to the cathedral of Santa Maria and its museum.
In one of those walks we met some German and Italian pilgrims who told that the Napoleon pass, from St.Jean to Roncesvalles is closed because there is too much snow and it is dangerous.
By then I was not feeling vary well, really exhausted, so we went back to the hotel and they let me rest, really sleep, in the living room.
At 6 pm we took  bus to Roncesvalles.  We met several friendly pilgrims.  Adriane, a young gal from Nova Scotia, Luis from Navarra, Peter from NY, and later on Sue Yong from Korea and Felipe from Galicia.  Our bedroom at the albergue  has bunk beds for 18 people. We are on top of each other.  I don't know how we are going to sleep.  There is no privacy at all but everyone is very nice.
We went to the church for the pilgrims Mass at 8 pm but the mass had been at 6  pm.  They changed it because it is Ash Wednesday.  Oh well, no ashes, no mass.
We had a pilgrims dinner, it was nice, vegetable soup, trout with fries and yogurt. By 9 pm I was in bed hoping to sleep. Lights out at 10 pm, and sweet sleep.  11 pm I am awake, I need to go to the bathroom. I do not want to wake up all this people  if I go to sleep I won't have to go so I wait... But I really really have to go. The trip is a whole adventure, go out the room quietly, into the hall and enter the other bedroom with 16 people.  The across to the end into the bathroom.  It is a common room with a sink and a urinal. There are also private little rooms two for showers and two for toilets.  This for all 34 people.
St. James protect us and help to love everyone around us.

Photo

Day 2 - Pamplona

We travelled for 24 hours straight.  Toronto to Frankfurt and then Madrid and from there a bus to Zaragoza and another one to Pamplona.
Beautiful day, sunny around 15C.  That is until we got close to Pamplona and the temperature went down and the rain came pouring in. 
We walked in the rain to our hotel; it is only 10 minutes, enough to get all wet.  We got our room and went looking for a pintxos bar for a light dinner.  It was actually pretty good.
So far the pilgrimage has been tiring but not taxing.  Day after tomorrow we start walking.  Let the pains begin.

 

Day 1 - March 3: On our way

I am wearing my pilgrim clothes, my wife insisted on taking my picture.  In my defense I will say that I have a technical shirt that weights almost nothing and dries in less than 2 hours.  As for the shoes,  same thing, they are ultralights, New Balance Minimum, that weight just under 400 grams.  I will use them for after the daily walks. What a difference from what the pilgrims wore traditionally in el Camino de Santiago.  We are spoiled. 

Last weekk, after the stay in the hospital, of course, I came home to find myself with a whopper of a cold that immediately I passed to Brenda.   We are better but we decided that we will re-evaluate tomorrow night.  If we are not well enough we will stay in Pamplona a day or two until we feel we are ready.

Last night all five of our sons either came to visit or called to wish us well in our pilgrimage.  That was really nice of all of them.  We are going to miss them and even more so our five grandchildren.

It will be so nice to be in Pamplona, just like summer.  The temperature here, right now is -18C, in Pamplona 11C.  Hard to believe that we are going to be 29 degrees Celsius warmer tomorrow evening.

In any case, we are all packed, I think we packed and re-packed 20 times in the last couple of weeks.  We will be at the airport in a few hours.  We fly this afternoon to Frankfurt and arrive at 8 am tomorrow, then on to Madrid where we should arrive around noon.  There are buses at Madrid Barajas airport that we can take to go to Pamplona. and we should be there around 7 pm tomorrow.  Just in time for a dinner of pintxos.