Day 7: Obanos

The streets in Pamplona’s old town were quiet when we left our albergue around 8 this morning. We stopped for a quick breakfast near the University of Navarra, and were soon climbing hills leading to the Alto de Perdón, a spot included in many films and vlogs focusing on El Camino Francés.

When we arrived at the iconic spot, we ran into our new friend Katie, a Canadian pilgrim we roomed with at Orisson, and who we’ve since seen a couple of times along The Way.

After the requisite photos in front of the metal sculptures, the three of us made it down the steep descent to Uterga, where we stopped for a delicious lunch at the Albergue Camino del Perdón.

Looking towards the mountains behind us, we all felt quite accomplished with the distance we’d covered today from the Alto de Perdón and Pamplona.

From Uterga, it was another 4.4 kilometers to Casa Raichu, our albergue for the night, where we parted ways with Katie, who had another 2 1/2 kilometers to go to reach her reserved lodging.

I was THRILLED to find my backpack waiting for me in our third floor room. While at lunch, we’d checked its Apple Tag location and it looked like it was still in Pamplona.

I hadn’t called the transport company yesterday, trusting that they would pick up at our busy Pamplona hostal, per our host’s vague instructions—but I was worried about fine print on the payment envelope that I’d only read late last night indicating that a phone call was required.

When we arrived at Casa Raichu I asked our new host if my bag had been delivered, and she said it hadn’t, so I asked if she could please call a taxi who could drive me to Pamplona to retrieve it. Sure, she said, I’ll do that after you get settled.

Thus the very pleasant surprise at finding that she’d already carried my pack up to our room—but had been confusing me with a guest in a different room.

To make things even better, she soon delivered two glasses of lovely Rioja to our room with a small plate of potato chips, to tide us over until our 7 p.m. dinner.

Our private room shares a small balcony with another room, but I’ve yet to see those guests. It also shares a sparkling bathroom with three other rooms on the same floor…but compared to our most recent digs, this feels very luxe.

Ah, and we dropped our dirty clothes in gingham bag, which she will return clean and folded after dinner. Such a nice way to close out our longest hike so far, at 22k.

Tomorrow we plan to walk 24 kilometers to Estella.Read more