Day 7 through 9 – Pamplona to Estella (46 km)

Day 7 – Sept 12, 2022 – Pamplona to Uterga (17.3 km)

Snippets from our day…enjoy!

Have you met my friend BABs?

On the day which shall not be mentioned I gained a new friend. Her name is BABs.  She’s the big ass blister I got on my left foot between my heel and my ankle bone. It isn’t from my shoes but from the way my foot creases on certain side slopes. It has been with me for days now creating nothing but pain and discomfort. So today, after much research, Doctor Rex (he only plays one on the Camino) performed a blisterectomy.  After some betadine and Band-Aids, BABs will trouble me no more. Bye bye BABs! I won’t torture you with before and after pictures.  Let’s just say it was gross as a blister and even more gross after the ectomy. Then doctor Rex delivered some bad news. He said my foot modeling career was probably over.  Gee thanks Rex, I was rather counting on that!

Day 8 – Sept 13, 2022 – Uterga to Cirauqui (14.4 km)

We had our first encounter with rain on the Camino today. The weather forecast called for rain off and on throughout the day, so we added our rain covers to our packs and made sure our rain jackets were in in easy reach in case we needed them. We walked for the first 6 kilometers in absolute solitude through a light drizzle, not hard enough to bother with our jackets, but enough to slowly soak into our clothes. It didn’t matter, because it was so cool and refreshing and we could tell our pace had increased from the previous hot days we’d had.

Eventually, we encountered heavy winds and sideways rain so we quickly stopped under the cover of a nearby tree, put our jackets on and started on our way again. About 10 minutes later, the rain stopped and our jackets became mobile saunas and we had to stop and take them off again. Hopefully we won’t have to play this game too often in our remaining days on the trail. 

In Puente de Reina, our halfway point for the day, we found a post office and finally sent home some our heavy items that we realized we didn’t need or didn’t need enough to continue carrying. We lightened our load by 5 combined pounds. It cost us 63€ to ship the box, and this is one of our largest expenses so far, but we don’t care. It may not sound like much, but 5 pounds is a big damn deal to have out of our packs and we are extremely grateful for our lighter loads. 

Tonight we are in a small town called Cirauqui and they are having their annual town festival. Everyone is dressed in white and red and there are lots of games and music. Our albergue host warned us the festivities would be going on all night. We may not get the best night’s sleep tonight, but being here to watch this celebration is totally worth it!

Day 9 – Sept 14, 2022 – Cirauqui to Estella (14.3 km)

Pretty quiet day today compared to recent days. My feet are killing me so we stopped at a farmacia for some new cushioned shoe inserts. I do hope they work. We’ll find out tomorrow. 

Something was different today. We’re not sure if it was just the culmination of the 112 km / 70 miles we’ve walked so far, the terrain of the trail, or if we didn’t eat enough today, but Rex also mentioned his legs felt a bit sluggish and we are both exhausted. We were glad to get to our lodging early and took a 1-1/2 hour nap immediately after checking in. 

We also found more Camino magic today. Fresh figs!  They were super sweet and delicious. What a treat!  The man who set up the table asked us where we were from and when we told him “Los Estados Unidos” he pulled out 3 US quarters that someone else had donated to him and proceeded to hand them to us since he couldn’t use them.

We found a restaurant in town serving a pilgrim’s meal of spaghetti bolognese and meatballs!  This felt like such a treat after all the tortilla de patatas and Serrano ham sandwiches we’ve eaten so far.