Stuck in Pamplona

I left off this journal yesterday not knowing if we were going to get out of Pamplona and if we would even finish our journey. We went to bed after a few prayers a very lovely bottle of local wine (the waitress for some reason gave me the whole bottle?!) and slept in a great hotel with air conditioning and was served a genuine all you can eat breakfast (the boys made good on that deal) and suddenly the answer was in front of us. We needed to ask the pilgrims office for help. It just so happened to be right around the corner from our hotel. The pilgrims office helper called around and typed into his computer like a mad man and threw out the wild idea of taking an over night bus to Sarria. We had to decide how badly we wanted to finish this. Our other option was to head to the Mediterranean and sit in Barcelona for a week. Everyone agreed to continue on. I guess we are on a mission (dare I say “from God”?!). We leave tonight at 10:30pm and get to Sarria at 10:33am tomorrow. Then we start hiking again. Now, I know my limits. And there is no way I can do a 24km hike after a red eye bus ride. So we booked a taxi service to get us right at the 100km mark outside Santiago so our compestellas are still legit. We hike 10km (much easier) and stay in an apartment in Pontmarin and we are back on track with timing. I had already canceled all of my hotel and albergue bookings so we wouldn’t lose money when I thought we wouldn’t make it. So now we hike like real pilgrims with no plans and hope for the best. Buen Camino! (God is protecting us and helping is through the journey! I kind of think these frustrations are all a part of his plan to teach us. The boys definitely learned how to handle set backs. No one panicked. No one argued. We just worked it out and the answer was presented to us.)

So what did we do with our time today? We walked around town and saw the running of the bulls road and the stadium. We saw the wall and the park. We sat in a cafe for hours while it rained and had hot chocolate and churros. It was a day of resting our legs. Jon bought some new shoes and socks and is already free of his heat rash. Oh. Also, I insisted on Donner Kebab for dinner. I lived in that stuff when Jon worked in Germany and I roamed the streets of Heidelberg every day. It was a fond trip down memory lane for me. Tomorrow we catch up to our schedule and are back on track.Read more