2 Blisters

So while Jess the mountain goat was dancing up the ridiculously steep hill we climbed yesterday, Becky the non-mountain goat was limping up it taking the smallest steps known to man, and crying her eyes out. Not quite the same hill experience I would say.......but I made it to the top, regrouped, stretched and was ready to go ( with a little encouragement from Jess ) then after what seemed like hours of steep downhill on jagged rocks, we finally got to Zubiri.

I should back track a little and just mention how nice the church ceremony was that we attended in Roncevalles, all the pilgrims went to be blessed by the monks. And even though I´m not a church person, it was really a cute ceremony and part of me hopes their blessing will protect me from falling and breaking a leg or something.

Anyway, back to present time. We had a great dinner in Zubiri with two Germans we have met along the way, and we had a good time teaching them some of the better English words......(speedo, leprechaun, skinny dipping....etc). By the way, how the hell to you try and explain what a leprechaun is to someone who has never heard of it?

After dinner we went back to the cute little hostel we were staying at, and got to listen to the musical snoring styles of at least 2 people in our room, including the guy who shook the walls every breath he took (see Jess´s earlier rant ). So after very little sleep we got up to continue on to Pamplona.

The walking today was much easier than it has been for the last three days, my muscles are sore, and 2 blisters have popped up, but other than that nothing too traumatic. The difficulty today was more emotional than physical, Jess was walking quite a ways in front of me ( she´s a fast little Spaniard!) , and I was hit with such a strong pang of home sickness that it was hard for me to continue. Every step hurt a different muscle, and all I could think about was how nice it would be to be at home with everyone, not walking up a mountain in the super hot sun. But being the ferocious person I am ( ha ha ) I dealt with it very well. And by that I mean that I cried a bit ( yep, more tears from my camp, shocking. ) and then had a sit, and then after a few minutes of self pity, got my ass up and kept walking. It was tough until I caught up to Jess, who made me instantly feel better, gave me a little motivational speech and then off we went. Believe me, if it wasn´t for Jess, I would have been on a plane out of here after the second day!

The rest of the walk to Pamplona was really beautiful, nice scenery, and nice little towns. We got into Pamplona around 3:30, and cleaned ourselves up, washed our clothes and now we´re just hanging around until we head out for dinner.

So it is safe to say that the pilgrims have survived another day, with only a minor sunburn (me, obv.), sore muscles (both of us) and a few blisters. Tomorrow we plan to take a break and only walk 5k, to Cizur Menor, after we explore Pamplona a bit more in the morning (I think we´ll do a re-enactment of the running of the bulls)

So until next post, Adios Amigos!

P.S : Everyone that voted for me on our poll of who will whine more, you were right!