Esteribar

Today was test of our endurance. The mountains of the Pyrenees in our last two days were hard but we were starting with fresh legs. Today I started sore and it was a long 22 km hike through the foothills on what the boys dubbed the spine of the Pyrenees. Some kind of seismic uplift created a sideways shale spine of rocks which was our trail. I didn’t get a good picture of it but it was brutal on the feet. I just yearned for flat ground. Twenty two km isn’t easy but it’s even harder balancing on spikey rocks. But we did it and the waters of Zubiri was a great reward in the shadow of a 12th c. bridge. Our hostel is clean and new and has laundry with free soap so we couldn’t pass that chance up. The little yard has a clothesline for us to use.

We kept leap-frogging with people we knew on the trail the whole way here. The first part of the hike was beautiful going through woods (one of the areas has a sign that said that it was called “witches woods” because 9 witches were burned at the stake there! Spooky!!!), little farm towns and playing with the cats who greeted us knowing that pilgrims often bring food and head rubs. Daniel was in Heaven. We bought lunch at a Mercado and I carried a grande baguette a few hours (it kept rubbing into low pine tree branches on the trail but don’t tell my people- what they don’t know won’t hurt them). We ate it at an outdoor restaurant with a few other familiar faces from the trail.

Dinner was the ONLY restaurant in Zubiri but thankfully we got there before the crowd and got a table. We told the next wave of people (again- friends from the trail) to drink lots of beer because it was going to be a long wait. We ate off the pilgrim’s menu but thankfully we had some choices. I had paella and flan. The wine was a mere 2 euros a glass. Since we are early, Jon and the boys are playing cribbage in our little backyard with astroturf. (Btw, we keep running into a Korean mom and son who cook their food wherever they land! Tonight they are also in our albergue. They are carrying carrots and rice in their packs. Impressive!)Read more