Up at 5:30am with the goal of being on our way by 6:30am. Sally is taking a taxi for the first half of today’s 14 mile walk to give her body a bit of a rest.
The plan: Sally takes a taxi at 9:30am 7.5 miles up the road to the town of Zabaldika, arriving about 9:45am. Becky and I start hiking at 6:30am and arrive about the same time. The night before we pick a place to meet. The “town” has six buildings, 2 on the east side of the highway where the trail is, 4 on the west side. I point out a spot on the east side where a stub road from the highway intersects the trail as the place to meet.
The reality: At 6:30am Becky is nowhere near ready to leave. The later we start walking the longer Sally has to wait at the meeting point. I finally start walking at 7:10am. Becky doesn’t start until 7:45am. Mindful of not making Sally wait too long, I walk the 7.5 miles without a break, enjoying walking by myself for the first half and then engrossed in a conversation with a man named Mark and his wife Jackie from San Francisco for the second half. I arrive at what I thought was our rendezvous point about 9:55am-no Sally. I don’t know that Becky has left half an hour behind me nor that she stopped for an hour to eat at a cafe with Melissa. Could it be that Sally is up on the west side of the highway at the church? Do I leave this spot to look and thereby risk missing the arrival of Becky? I take my phone off airplane mode incase Sally does the same and try calling her. Voicemail. I wait an hour, calling every five minutes. Finally I go up to the church, a climb of about 100 vertical feet up on a hill. No Sally, but I meet an Austrailian friend and ask about Sally. No-haven’t seen her. Where is she? I ask him to tell her I am down at the spot we designated if he finds her. I go back down hoping to intercept Becky. Finally at 11:00am Becky shows up, walking with Melissa. No Sally. We decide to go back up to the church, the only other place I figure she can be. Halfway up the hill my phone rings, an Austrailian number is calling. It is Sally. She is half a mile ahead on the route where the trail intersects a road in a roadside park. Melissa and Becky continue to the church, I head back down and meet the Austrailian at the rendezvous point, looking for me. Together we walk the half mile and finally meet up with Sally. She has been here for more than 2 hours waiting for me. The taxi dropped her at the road/trail junction, half a mile out of the town. Convenient if you are hiking on but not so if you are trying to meet in the town. Becky and Melissa will hike together on a side trail from the church that connects and meet us at the albergue in Pamplona. Miscommunication or rather the lack of. We don’t have SIM cards in our phones so we can’t communicate when separated. We buy them today in Pamplona as planned, but it sure would have been nice to have them today!
It is a couple miles to the outskirts of Pamplona, then about 3 miles to the city center where our room is. Along the way we stop at an Orange store and get SIM cards for our phones. €25 for 25Gb and unlimited talk for two months. While I am in the store getting our phones taken care of Sally hangs on the street and intercepts Becky and Melissa as they come by so we can get Becky’s phone taken care of too.
During our 2 mile walk thru the city we stop once at a grocery and buy oranges, bananas and cherries and again at a bakery for muffins. The route takes us thru a castle and by the church and Melissa who has been here before shows us where the running of the bulls takes place. We walk through the main square and part with Melissa-she has a hotel room half a block from the albergue we will use (Aloha Albergue).
Showers, charging devices and resting for an hour then text Melissa and meet her for dinner. Her and I share our locations so we can meet up in the city square. So nice to be back on line with all its advantages!!
Melissa bought all four of us dinner. Cheese platter, fries, salad, tapas. Afterward we walked up to the cathedral to get our Credentials stamped and watched some type of religious goings on inside. We walk to where the running of the bulls start before returning to our room and calling it a night. Good day? Absolutely. Bring on tomorrow.
Bridge entrance to Pamplona
Bridge in Pamplona
Wall entrance to Pamplona
Melissa walks streets in Pamplona to her hotel
Running of the bulls statue
The pen that holds the bulls before they are released
Holes where they secure fences to direct route of the bulls
Common rom in our albergue.
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