Camino Frances 2025

Today Mother Nature could not make up her mind. I put on my rain gear after break and walked outside to find the rain had stopped. I kept walking and when I wanted to sit down and eat lunch, it started raining again so I had to put it back on. I walked a little and it stopped raining so had to take it all off again. The threat of rain hung over me all afternoon with fat rain drops falling down but only for very brief moments. As I neared the end, I had to open an umbrella to keep the rain off me but it still was very light. I was super grateful the rain held off most of the day and the overgrown tree canopies sheltered most of the road from moisture bc I could see the road to Zubiri getting very slick and dangerous for pilgrims after rain.

I had thought today would be an easier day than SJPDP but I had a lot of trouble. My left knee started to ache early into the walk so I had to favour my right leg on the declines. It ended up being another long walking day which started around 8:15 am and I didn't get into Zubiri until 4:30 pm. My Google watch said it was a 30 km hike or another 40,000 step day.

Once I parted ways with Bruno, I did not see him again all day. I mostly walked alone with no one infront or behind me most of the day. I did meet a few other pilgrims along the way later in the day who ended up staying at the same hostel.

Over half way to Zubiri, I walked past two Asian pilgrims at a cafe. The girl waved and called out Buen Camino as I passed. Not longer after, while sitting down at a bench to eat lunch, I saw them say goodbye to each other. She turned around to walk back so I asked him why. He mentioned her knee was injured and she wanted to go back to town to get a taxi to Zubiri. I almost wanted to run after her to ask if we could share a taxi with my bad knee too. Instead I kept limping my way to Zubiri. I tried different ways of walking downhill like side shuffling, walking backwards, and using wider horizontal steps to try and take the pressure off my left knee. They all helped somewhat but it made me very slow.

Overall I'm glad I kept walking to Zubiri but I almost slipped and fell three times so it could have been much worse.

I was the last to arrive at my smaller 20 bed albergue and very glad I had messaged ahead to secure a bed. I grabbed a shower and commented outloud I was very hungry which the Asian pilgrims overheard so they invited me to dinner with them. The had just returned from the supermarket was closed so they also needed to buy dinner.

We went to the bigger restaurant in town and shared all the food. The girl was from China and he was South Korean. We compared notes and laughed about all our injuries. He (Den) also had to walk backwards into Zubiri and she was contemplating another taxi into Pamplona tomorrow with her bad knee. Another South Korean girl named Rumi in our albergue was also injured and wanted to spend two days in Pamplona to recover. She felt too hurt to join us for dinner and just wanted to take some medication and sleep.

The three of us got along really well and decided to go to the same hostel in Pamplona tomorrow so we can cook some Asian food together.

Other memorable moments from today including fighting off two rambunctious cats who tried to steal my lunch and almost making two pilgrims lost.

I had tried to eat my sandwhich while walking and it was too hard so I stopped and rested on a camino marker which was located where the path split. These markers show pilgrims which way to go. The pilgrims started heading down the wrong road when I called out to them. I pointed out the right road and they were justifiably confused because my whole body and poncho had hidden the marker from view.

Hopefully some rest tonight will improve my knee tomorrow so I can continue my walking into Pamplona!もっと詳しく