April 21, 2023

I am back to walking a little later than hoped, it is 9:00 am when I start out of Roncesvalles.  It is a pretty morning and I do not see many other pilgrims due to my late start.

The first town I come upon is Burguete, this would have been the 3 extra miles had Roncesvalles been full.  It’s a very quite little town of about 300 people.  I didn’t see any of them, but it is very pretty like something out of a brochure.

After walking out of town the views become very rural in this Basque part of Spain. I eventually come to a small creek with no real bridge.

I do end up seeing a few more walkers as the trail goes by.  There was an older lady that definitely preferred walking alone.  I had to cross a creek on stepping stones with no handrail to add balance with carrying a backpack.  At 7 miles I come into Espinal, another small village.  I stop to have something to eat at Bar Juan’s, I see a couple of much younger guys that blew right by me yesterday, they look a little worse for wear themselves today.  It was simple food at Juan’s, but it worked.

As I sat at the small table I decided that Espinal was far enough for day 2.  I found a small hotel by the name of Apartamentos Irati.  I had to wait to get my room so I left my backpack and looked around.  I was sitting on a short stone wall talking with another pilgrim when a box truck drove up and started to blow its loud horn.  I noticed locals staring to come out of their homes and make their way to the truck.  By then the back of the truck was open and a set of stairs were pulled from the back.  I peered into the back of the truck, to my surprise it was a mobile butcher. Of course, the small town was too small to have a butcher of its own.  The older ladies climbed the metal stairs and made their purchases.  I went back to Juan’s for a beer to wait for my check-in time.

The lady that did everything at the hotel took my passport information and took me to my room.  I told her that I wanted dinner when it was served.  I took my shower, washed my clothes and took a short nap.

At dinner I met 2 Dutch women, one of the guys from sitting on the wall earlier was there too, he was from San Diego.  We talked a little about the challenges of the first day. We all had stopped in this small village, so that meant that all of us choose or had to have a short day to follow our walk the day before. We talked about how we had over packed and the items that we were already starting to leave behind, the 2 women thought it funny that I had packed a partial roll of toilet paper and that I was not ready to discard it. We had our dinners and headed to our beds.  Before going to sleep I tried out my pack cover for the rain that was forecasted to come tomorrow. If you walk on the Camino, you will encounter the rain, the only question is how much of it?