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El Camino
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  • James Byrne

El Camino

An open-ended adventure by James Read more
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  • James ByrneEl CaminoTraveler

    Day 4: Pamplona

    October 8 in Spain ⋅ ⛅ 17 °C

    Quite a different day today, rest day! I had allocated a day of buffer in my schedule to use for a great city or if my body was breaking down, and while earlier than expected, I decided that limping for the next 30 days may not be ideal. Off to the physio.

    Thankfully nothing Camino ending, but a common combination of tight hip flexors and a lot of incline (thank you Pyrenees). Having this muscle released turned out to be about as painful as the whole walk so far, but was certainly feeling better as I strolled around Pamplona.

    Sneaking in lunch before siesta, I found what felt like a veeery local restaurant. Whenever someone new would enter they would always say to the other eaters something like "Buen approvecho", which seems to be like bon appetite, but used differently. They seqrrves good simple food, bread, three courses and half a bottle of red wine for 12 euros. In the middle of the old town! And now off for siesta. I love Spain.

    Post siesta i was back to listening to Spanish podcasts as I cruised around the city. Very liveable city Pamplona, I liked it a lot.

    I went to mass at San Saturnino, 7pm on a weekday, why not. Its been interesting to see how many of these late midweek masses have been packed full of locals.

    I then met my mate Henry at a tapas bar, where we found some pig trotters! I hadn't seen these before so ordered them, and while the taste was pretty good, the texture was very loose and a bit tough to stomach.

    I had a funny interaction with the bartender as he approached to take our order. Needing more time I asked for "dos minutos", and i hear back "si dos mintos", which which i assumed was some slang for minutes. As two glasses of wine turned up on the table I realised he had probably said "dos tintos", meaning vino tinto (red wine), which I wasn't really mad about    Read more

  • James ByrneEl CaminoTraveler

    Day 3: Zubiri - Pamplona

    October 6 in Spain ⋅ ☀️ 23 °C

    Day 3 already!

    Time passes both very quickly and very slowly. We started in the dark this morning off with team America, a really nice group of guys. Today felt a bit closer to civilisation, walking through increasingly bigger towns as we headed towards Pamplona. We also started to leave the greenery behind and get into more dry, yellow terrain.

    Today was a really cool day of just zigzagging with different familiar faces, walking a few bits with different people. I got to Pamplona with Grant and Theresa, a young couple from Virginia, and we immediately found some beeeautiful pinchos bars. A beer and a rojo vermouth washed everything down beautifully.

    Pamplona is a beautiful Spanish city! Lovely streets, churches and stops for food and drink. I saw the bull ring and can only imagine the chaos of all the bulld and people in what is a very old style town.

    A quick stop via a church and decathlon to replace a mysterious missing pair of undies and then I headed to my accomm for a siesta. I think my pack may be a bit small for me, definitely some pressure in the shoulders and my hip flexor still pretty tender. We'll manage.

    For dinner i met up to farewell Troy and Melvin heading back to Louisiana. Both absolutely lovely fellas, the best of America with their energy, positivity and genuine just love of life. Between them and my new mate Moses, they would say a big hello to anyone and everyone, which certainly freaked some of the locals.    Read more

  • James ByrneEl CaminoTraveler

    Day 2: Roncesvalles - Zubiri

    October 5 in Spain ⋅ ☁️ 12 °C

    First things first, pilgrim breakfast. Its pretty low key, think a pretty tough piece of soundough, ham and cheese, an apple, some cake, coffee and orange juice. Not fancy but just simple tasty food. Feels fitting for a pilgrimage to be honest.

    Today I took some time to walk alone to catch up on my Spanish podcasts! Having and no time along yesterday, which was great, I wanted to continue the learning. Having had my fill of that i began to walk with a Mexican artist called Ricciardo. I can now tell you exactly how a bronze statue is molded, cast and set! Really cool stuff.

    At a little town i don't even know the name of i stopped into the church. On seeing what looked like mass preparations, I trotted out some simple Spanish and discovered mass was in 20 minutes. How good!

    Turns out it would be me and about 7 of the towns local abuelas. I did get many smiles and a buen camino at the end, unfortunately I couldn't really understand much else what was said, but it was encouraging nonetheless!

    I walked onto in the mercado, grabbing some chorizo and bread for lunch and pushed on. We shared the path with a half marathon which was challenging at times, but again was very encouraging when some of the locals used their pretty scarce breath to wish you a 'Buen Camino!' as they ran past.

    Today felt much easier and before I knew it I was about 80%. I started to feel a pain in my hip flexor/abductor which I'm a bit nervous about. Ordinarily muscle soreness fine, but leave the tendons and ligaments alone! Never felt it is any practice so that's a bit frustrating. Will see how that goes tomorrow.

    As i was about to start walking again an Australian couple started to chat to me. After a couple of questions about where eqchothet where from we really started to get specific, and turns out they were the parents of a boy I'd gone to school with over 15 years ago! The Florians, Gerard and Fran, were an absolute hoot and we had great yarns for the last hour or so into Zubiri. Legends and I hope I'll see them again.

    Zubiri is also a pretty chilled place, not a whole lot going on. A few pilgrims were having a well earned beer in the "Plaza Major" and o joined a table of Americans. Absolutely lovely. Incredibly couple from Houston, a moustachioed guy called Moses, who apparently is a baptist meaning he doesn't drink or dance, but he was loving the San Miguels. And then Mel and Troy from Louisiana who were golden! They had just come from the monastery in Montserrat where you can stay a max of 3 days for some reason, and Troy as a fellow Catholic walked me through the story of St Ignatius Loyola. Its a pretty great retelling and Troy's recount was full of passion and detail.

    We had dinner with them and some other Europeans, and while only Day 2 it already feels like ive had a crazy amount of different experiences and stories. Incredible to think I have 34 days of this. Bliss!    Read more

  • James ByrneEl CaminoTraveler

    Day 1: St Jean - Roncesvalles

    October 4 in Spain ⋅ 🌧 16 °C

    Today was the big day, Day 1! And a tough day to boot, 24 kms and 1.5kms incline over the Pyrenees. The wholesomeness continued today with a communal breakfast and a bit of a reading from our hosts to get us thinking about the journey ahead, why we're doing it and what we want out of it. A great question if I'm honest, will get thinking.

    Out of the gate I ran into Raul, my Sicilian friend from the train, and just like that, from 20 metres in, I wasn't solo anymore. As we walked we collected and chatted to a bunch of different people, some from our accommodation and some just lovely people. It really is an incredible atmosphere, I'm not sure what I could compare it to. We walked the last 4 kilometres with an Argentinian couple, a Korean guy, a German lady and an American couple. Some great chat

    We did some pretty hard work today. While there are one or two rifugios along the way, the last 3 hours we were on pure wilderness, so a good decision to have brought food in Bayonne.

    We had the occasional pleasure of listening our cycling "Pavarotti", which was hilarious. Sheep, horses, falcons and cultures everywhere! Constant animal presence. They have bells on tbe horses here, and I believe it is genuinely because these are French eating horses. Fair enough.

    We've arrived at this huge dorm in Roncesvalles which runs like clockwork, had a shower, did a quick clothes wash and then off to mass. The atmosphere here was also pretty special, so many people on the same journey. The town has three dorm/hotels and a church, nothing more needed aha.

    Dinner, as I'm coming to expect, was a very family affair. A long table with all other pilgrims. I made two new Italian friends in Franco and Andrea who were great chat. Andrea ordered the pasta starter in Spain ( a huge risk in Spain he said) and was hilariously disappointed. He nearly choked and then said this was the level of pasta served only during wartime! They were great. Dinner was a 3 course meal with wine on the table as well, not bad at all!    Read more

  • James ByrneEl CaminoTraveler

    Day 0

    October 3 in France ⋅ ☁️ 16 °C

    Today was Day 0, travel day from London to Saint-jean-pied-de-port (bit of a mouthful). Having finished work on Tuesday, completed a case study interview on Wednesday and frantically packing my life on Thursday, handing the keys back today I was exhausted.

    Biarritz was stop one, which is a beautiful little city I wish I had been to before! An incredible weekend destination. My uber driver Julien told me it used to be an old fishing village until Napolen built a palace on the hill (lovely building) and then all the rich folk followed. But the town has a really cool beach and cosst line, which weirdly reminds me of Australia, even having a grass outcrop/knoll thing which is super similar to Balmoral Beach. Strange.

    Given we were in the French bit of the Basque country, you knew the food would be good. I had some Basque sausage with mash and a Bordeaux red. A very decent start foodwise.

    Having read "don't pack your fears" and desperately trying to pack a light bag (i think I'm at about 7-8 kgs) I had to make my first purchase of a belt for my hiking pants. Napoleon's gone but Louis Vuitton and the crew moved in (actually all have Mansions there) so the belt is but expensive.

    I had an hour stopver in Bayonne, just enough to see the Cathedral and wonder around town. Also lovely and French, surprise surprise.

    And then it was onto the train, on which I quickly feel asleep. Upon waking however I made my first Camino friends, having a chat with a lovely Austrian couple and a guy from Siciliy. Seeing someone else with a pack seems to make it perfectly acceptable to strike up a conversation, much easier than expected.

    This continued at the albergue. I walked into what looks like a three story house and there's about 12 people having dinner around a table chatting. Im served a plate of food , quick intros done, and then had some incredible wholesome chat with these total strangers. Absolute cross section of society, with me potentially the youngest, but from all over the world. And run by an Aussie called Axe whose been in France for 40 years now!

    I'm exhausted in bed but having at least got a glimpse into the routine for the next 34 days it doesn't seem so unknown and I've not had any other glaring holes in my packing so far. Getting pretty excited.    Read more

    Trip start
    October 3, 2025
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