Camino Week 1 (Reset) -> SJPDP to Pamplona

April 25, 2022 by libertatemamo 52 Comments

It’s not quite been a week, only 5 days to be honest, but today feels like a good day to blog.

I’m in my hostel room in Pamplona having just walked ~70km over the Pyrenees mountains, into Spain and all the way to the heart of this big city.

In all my planning and dreaming of the Camino, this was my first and most significant goal, not because it’s a particularly long way, but because it contains several of the hardest sections of the walk and I figured that if I could make it this far with all limbs and toes still intact, I’d feel so much more confident about the rest.

And I made it! I really did.

Through rain and oceans of mud, insane wind and many good pilgrim dinners and companions. It’s been so much harder than I imagined, and yet so much better too.

So as I sit here, dry and warm with belly full and spirit well, I thought I’d share some of that first journey with you. The good, the bad and the oh so funny, like all of life’s moments wrapped into one.

Note/ Again I apologize for any weird-looking or odd formats and spelling. This is 100% iPhone photos and post. It’s the only thing I’m carrying on my pilgrimage.

Day 1 : SJPDP to Orisson, 7.5 km, 626 m elevation gain

My first day on the trail and it’s raining so hard there’s rivers of water flowing down the road.

I get geared up in all my rain stuff, say goodbye to my loves and start up the steep trail. Despite the weather I’m in a great mood. I’m excited to get going and thanks to my umbrella I’m in my own little cocoon and can take my time. I may look like a walking UFO, but I’m dry and can check my phone map without having to worry about the rain.

Totally worth the weight, even if just for this first leg of the trip!

After a while I get into a rhythm, zombie mode, plodding upwards at my usual snail-pace, enjoying the solitude and taking a few shots of the grey views.

Surprisingly I only meet a few pilgrims most of which pass me like mountain goats and vanish like specters into the mist. The whole thing feels eerie and cool.

Further up the trail parts from the road into sticky red mud and fog so thick I can barely see several feet in front of me. It’s slow going and by the time I reach Orisson my shoes are dripping wet. The place is packed and heaving with people too, and there’s so much wet gear it feels like I’ve entered a Turkish bath.

After a longish and somewhat confusing check-in I get a room with 3 double bunk beds. It’s nice and clean, but 5 gals are already there so there’s only one bed left and of course it’s an upper bunk. {{groan}}

Upper bunks are a bit of a bane on the Camino and TBH I don’t know anyone who likes them.

They’re awkward and difficult to get into. Great for 5 year olds, but frankly death traps for a woman of my age and dubious knees. This bunk is no exception and does indeed try to kill me later that night when I lose the “yes I need to pee”, “no you don’t” negotiation with my bladder, try to inch my way down, slip on the rung and do a kind of wild one-armed swing and crash into the bed with my right boob.

My first Camino injury {{slap face}}

Still my room-mates are lovely. 4 German girls and an older Dutch lady who I immediately like. I have a feeling they’ll become good friends.

That night is the pilgrims dinner, and it’s absolutely lovely. One of the particular traditions at Orisson is that after dessert everyone gets up to introduce themselves and share why they’re doing the Camino, and that moment is very special indeed. So many are here for a transition, some for spiritual reasons, others to overcome losses and a few just for fun.

”I’m here coz my wife told me to take a hike” jokes one guy

”I’m here because I lost my wife” shares another

The stories are moving and deep, and as I go to bed that night I feel rather emotional and very much a pilgrim. There’s no doubt that my journey has finally begun.

Camino lesson #1: Umbrellas rock and bunk beds are designed to kill you

Day 2: Orisson to Roncesvalles, 18km, 698m of elevation gain

Today is the big stage over the mountains and no one can believe it when we wake up to a clear and sunny day.

Somehow the rain that fell all yesterday like a waterfall is gone and we’re getting the gift of a perfect day over the high pass.

Thank you Camino Gods!

We all eat a simple breakfast of weak coffee and bread, pick up a packed sandwich and start our hike. Or rather I panic.

Just before I’m set to go I suddenly realize my hiking poles are gone, taken from the hook where I left them outside the night before. It’s a dead end for me without them, and I’m about to break down when one of the German girls from my room offers me hers. My first Camino Angel. Amazingly I find them soon after, moved to another spot and hidden under a poncho (?), so I’m able to give her hiking poles back. Still her generosity in that moment leaves a deep impression on me.

As for the walk, it’s honestly just frikkin glorious.

The sun rises in a fire of red that cools to pink clouds, mist-covered valleys and finally clear, blue skies with views as far as the eye can see. It’s windy, crazy windy so much so that it often feels like you’re being swept off the path, but it’s so darn beautiful that nobody seems to care.

We walk uphill through open fields, pass wild orchids, and reach the Vierge d’Orisson (Virgin of Orisson). Soon after I see a newborn foal taking it’s first steps, then I pass a carcass being eaten by a flurry of raptors. Life and death in less than a mile. The whole thing blows my mind.

There’s a van with coffee and snacks a bit further on where I stop to rest, and then the path goes into the wilderness along a ridge line. After that I kind of lose track of time. I walk through forests, take pics, find myself completely alone. At some point during this dream I pass into Spain.

Further down I stop to eat at a refuge hut. I decide to relax on the lee side but realize, just a hair before it’s too late, that it’s been used a toilet by rather too many. Seriously, people? Instead I sit in the wind until my toes turn blue.

The last 7km of the hike are brutal as I walk up and over the Col de Lepoeder at 1,432m. I’m at the snow line now, the wind is insanely cold and I’m being blown around like a tennis ball. The way down (I take the longer, safer route on the right) seems interminable and when I reach Roncesvalles Albuergue my feet are so sore I have no idea how I’ll walk again in the AM. I suffer another hour as I wait in the insanely long queue to check-in and then finally, blissfully get my bed and a hot shower.

That night we have another great pilgrims dinner where I meet folks from all over, including a fellow Dane. I go to the church mass, get blessed (figured it can only help) and fall thankfully and exhausted asleep.

Camino lesson #2: Camino Angels exist, but (always) watch out for the shit

Day 3: Roncesvalles to Zubiri, 23.8km, a little uphill, lots of downhill

Today was my scariest day, or rather the one I had been dreading the most.

The downhill into Zubiri, affectionately known as the “knee buster” is notorious for being slippery and treacherous when wet.

And guess what the weather forecast was?

I woke up with a screaming headache too, not from the guy singing “buenos dias” with a bedsheet on his head (yes that actually happened), but because I realized I only drank a liter of water crossing the Pyrenees yesterday when I checked my backpack bladder. Ooops. On the bright side my feet felt surprisingly OK, so I pop two painkillers and set off in the rain.

The start of the hike is actually great. Wonderful off-road trails through mystical forests and green moss, rolling hills with red tree-tops that look like paintbrushes, and  charming towns like Burguete (where Hemingway way wrote “The Sun also Rises” in a mere 8 weeks in 1926).

There’s also a ton of river crossings with mud. So…so…much mud.

Crazily enough several of the stream crossings have barbed wire on the side, so there’s literally no way to get across without dunking your shoes completely in the mud. I decide that someone clearly designed these things as a special kind of Camino torture. By noon my shoes are brown and caked.

At around 12km it’s raining so hard that I stop for a coffee break at a bar in Guerendiain. I bump into a CA gal and after the rain lessens a bit we decide to walk together. More trails, more mud. A bit further on a Danish gal joins us and the three of us pass the time chatting until we get to the snack truck at around the 18km mark.

This is the start of the steep decent into Zubiri, and it’s everything I’ve dreaded. It’s rocky and steep and so darn slick with mud and water that a single miss-step would have ended my pilgrimage right there and then. I’m terrified,  but in this moment I’m not alone and my two Camino Angels stay with me the whole way, settling my frazzled nerves and getting me down one slow, slippery step at a time.

By the time I get to Zubiri I’m exhausted, but so very grateful and relieved.

I check into a charming little albuergue, have a hot shower and the luxury of getting my muddy, wet clothes washed and dried by the owners for only EUR 6 (such a deal!). Then I go to dinner with my friends, happen upon the German gals from my first night, and we all laugh, chat and eat like starving dogs.

That night the Korean guy in the bunk above me snores, moans and gyrates all night like some kind of horror-porn movie. Even my fabulous ear plugs can’t keep him out. Still I’m happy and so very relieved that I manage to sleep nonetheless.

All in all it’s been a good, good day.

Camino Lesson #4: All fears can be overcome with friends.

Day 5: Zubiri to Pamplona, 20.6km, up and down, up and down

A non-rain day (finally!), but no less muddy so it’s slip-sliding and schlop-schlopping all day long.

The path out of Zubiri starts by a massive factory, probably the ugliest and loudest thing I’ve seen on the Camino so far. It has yellow smoke bulging out of one of the chimneys,  industrial lights and all kinds of random alarms going on.

Soon past it however the trail opens up to mountains covered in pine as far as the eye can see and I quickly drift into my usual slow-zombie mode, plodding along, enjoying the views.

A young Irish guy who was limping so badly yesterday I didn’t think he’d walk flies by with a smile.

”Cream, tape and painkiller, and I’m a new man” he announces happily

Then a couple of French guys pass, a bunch of young folk, Americans, Germans and all sorts. Literally everyone seems to zoom by.

At one point I’m so zoned out I twist my ankle, slip and fall on the small, loose mud-covered stones. It’s a full-on wipe-out and once I manage to get up again I’m relieved to find everything working with just a few scrapes as damage.

Gotta be more careful, Nina

A short way down I meet up with my Zubiri gals again, and everyone is obsessing about food. There’s been nothing so far, and every pilgrim on the trail is ravenous and caffeine-deprived. I swear I see a sign for coffee, but it turns out to be a hallucination and we plod on a full 10km until we finally hit a place to eat. The stop turns out to be delicious and filling, a true diamond in the mud, so to speak.

After the café we follow the road for a while and then back on the muddy trail. Just mud, mud mud the whole way, a symphony of splush splash, stick with shoes are so caked that I wonder if I’ll ever get them clean again.

Along the way we share stories of our respective injuries.

Somebody’s got a bad shoulder, my calves feel like there are giant golf balls in them, and my hiking buddy says her ass hurts. We try to figure out if thats from the uphills or from clenching so hard from fear on the downhills, and get at least 20 mins of good laughs about it. Either way, we conclude, our backsides are going to be so darn fine by the end of all this.

Finally after what seems like an eternity of mud we’re back on a large paved path following the river, then another few uphill/downhills and finally we approach of the outskirts of the big city.

I leave the girls at their albuergue in Arre, stop at a bar to have a sandwich and coffee with a bunch of other pilgrims and then take the long slog into town which I walk with the German gals from the 1st night again (clearly we’re fated to meet over and over). It seems to take forever, but the final entry into town is worth it. A spectacular path along the old fortified walls and through the medieval gate.

When I arrive at my hostel I’m completely trashed and a little sad to be without my Camino friends. I really need this rest though, and tomorrow they’ll join me again.

As they say “you may come alone, but you never walk alone”.

Camino lesson #4: Your ass is so fine, and don’t believe every coffee sign you see

I’m Doing Great

Today I’ve been roaming around Pamplona, visiting the grand Cathedral, buying a few items at the pilgrims shop (Caminoteca…awesome place) and of course writing this blog.

I’m sore, but surprisingly OK. My feet are good, my shoes have been amazing (even soaking wet and muddy) and my pack and hiking umbrella have both been fabulous. But what’s really blown me away are the intense experiences and friendships I’ve made in such a short time.

I truly have no idea what the rest of the Camino will bring, but if it’s anything like these first 5 days I’m certain it’s going to be incredible.

See you there.