Roncesvalles to Zubiri

Roncesvalles to Zubiri 08/03/2023
After the killer but relatively speaking short descend yesterday, this was the first full and for the most part downhill day from the Pyrenees. The night before we had made our minds that we would spend another day in Roncesvalles to recover from the first brutal day. However, we soon realized that we were the very few staying behind. WAT? We decided to cover our packs and headed out under a soaking rain and 50F degrees temperature. We started walking down the hill through the forest with a nice terrain for fast walking, however that didn’t last long.

One third of the way we stopped in the village of Espinal. The café attendant has just immigrated to Spain from Colombia SA, and this young man knew how to cook. We ordered a pasta Bayonese and it was delicious. There we meet a French family (Dad, 22 years old daughter and her boyfriend) that were laying camp nearby. They were so helpful to us that we picked up their food bill headed out on our way. One kilometer up the hill we heard someone calling and it was the French girl running towards us. She thanks us for the meal and gave us a special handmade gift/pendant that we forever cherish. We talked to her for a few minutes, took some pictures and continued up the hill until the next village.

In El Camino, you will meet so many people along the way, those whom you will never see again. Just that little exchange of gratitude of things you do or say will ever be remembered.

While resting flat in the middle of the road in this tiny village we were met by a friendly poodle dog. We play with the dog during our 5 minutes break, but then it was time to go. We continued walking nonstop for 4 more hours. Once we reached the village of Erro, the cliffs turned very sharp, and dangerous and rocky, however in retrospect, there was nothing like the suicidal hill the day before. I would say nothing measures to the suicidal hill, but you have to be extremely careful specially if the Erro's path is wet.

We reached Zubiri at 7:00pm and then started looking for a place to stay. We were so bitten up that we couldn’t even move one more step. After a shower and disinfecting the blisters, we wore our sandals and walked another half a kilometer to a restaurant to eat. However, we were so tired that we didn’t get to sleep until 3:00am.Read more