April 22, 2023

Rain as forecasted, the village does not look as festive as yesterday.

The umbrella at Bar Juan’s has no takers this morning.   It’s 9:00 and I am leaving later than hoped for.  My right knee is bothering me from the walk down the mountain to Roncesvalles, I am doing my best to move on.  But there is a lot of uphill walking today with a steep downslope to Zubiri.  I am now using my trekking poles all the time and appreciating them. I continue to wind through a couple of small villages and quickly move from asphalt to concrete to muddy dirt paths.

Not sure what is worse, the rain or my knee.  I am seeing other walkers today, one takes my picture for me and I take his for him.   It’s pretty walking though the occasional village and then into the forest of trees.  I am getting better at looking for the Camino markers.

I come to realize the downhill walking is harder on my knee than the walking uphill.  By the time I reach Alto de Erro I know that I need to stop for the day and get some help with my knee, I walked about 11 miles today so far.   I just don’t feel I can take the pain of walking 2.25 miles downhill and my guide book indicates caution as the downhill grade is steep.

As I come to a clearing to cross the road I see a food truck. This is going to be my place to stop, leave the Camino and get some help.

I bought some food and think on my plan.  The purveyor of this little truck does not speak much English. I stood there about 10 minutes savoring a banana and a Nestles Crunch Bar.  How do I get a taxi to this remote turnout?  Two police officers pull up to the truck, they have the red jackets in the picture above, I could tell that this was a regular stop for them as they were very talkative with the man running the food truck.  I was able to ask one of them if they knew how I could get a ride down the hill because of my knee.  The officer I talked with said he would ask the food truck owner to call a taxi.  He also told me I should ride past Zubiri and go to Pamplona, as the latter would have better medical care.  He relayed the request to the food truck and the call was made.  I thanked all involved and waited in the light rain for my ride. To add to the knee pain I had picked up a rather bad cold, I didn’t think it was Covid, but I had no tests with me. The last train ride to St Jean was packed like sardines, I very well could have picked up something with all those people in such close proximity.

The taxi was a van, I got in the back and we started our way to Pamplona, I felt like a soggy rag, the driver opened his window because of my cold, the cold air didn’t make me feel any better.

As we drove through Zubiri I saw happy pilgrims arriving at their destination.  The driver tells me that he will take me to the center of the city unless I had a reservation.  I pulled out my phone and started to look. I found a great room at the Gran Hotel La Perla.  I told the driver and he gave me an interesting look.  As we drove into town we stopped at a large intersection with a traffic light.  Crossing in front of us was the Swiss man that sat next to me at breakfast in St Jean.  I realized that I was 2 days behind him and now I was riding in a cab to Pamplona to take some days to rest to get help my knee and get past my cold.  The street opened onto the Plaza Del Castillo, it is huge, my hotel is on the northeast corner of the square.  The ride was 53 euros, I gave the driver 60, he was extremely happy as tipping is totally different in Spain than the US.  He quickly grabbed my pack, took it to the front desk and explained my situation to them.

Staff was so very helpful, it turned out that I had chosen one of the nicest hotels in the city, now I understand the look from the driver.  I was taken to my suite and given a room key that was attached to a huge key fob.  I limped around the room, unpacked and took a long hot shower.  I ordered some room service and ice for my knee, settled in for the first night. Dinner was anchovy toast with plenty of cheese, a soup and bottle of water.

My reservation is for 2 nights.  Turned out that this hotel was the hotel that Hemingway used to stay in on his trips to Pamplona, I was more sold by the room service, but an interesting addition to my story.