Cizur

Well I am going to give a name to this day. I will call it “River ran dry”. We set out at our normal time and we had about 10 miles to Pamplona, the city where they run the bulls!. The entire way we followed Rio Argo river and was the most delightful section we have walked so far. The river has its twists and turns which we followed and the river ran fast in parts and slow in others. Weather was perfect in the morning and CJ had picked up the pace a bit so I was taking up the rear for most of the morning. We stopped at a cafe about 4 miles in and sure enough our man Ray was there. 3rd time he tells us that we won’t see him again as he is slow but I am not believing that!
We arrived in Pamplona which is a large city and the trail crawls right thru the center of the city and its downtown area. Kind of funny to have the sweaty crowd with backpacks walking with the city shoppers. My goal of purchasing a new Fitbit did not pan out as the 3 places I went to that online say they sell them don’t so I got a cheap one that will do most of the job till I get home.
After that search was over we discussed and both of us did not want to see more of the city so we choose to push on.
As we were leaving the city , there was a very large group of people centered around a large building ( you will see the pic) and they were waiting for some sort of event. The place was crawling with the national police and they were on the rooftops guarding as well so I will assume that some important people were involved in the event. The problem was the people were all crowded on the Camino route so we were challenged to push through the crowd with our packs… I had stored my walking sticks in my bag but was tempted to pull them out at one point :) we finally got thru the crowd and on our way. We never did figure out what the event was.

Leaving Pamplona took awhile as it is a large city but once we got out it was really hot, dry desert type land and the last water fountain before we entered the last 6 mile stretch was out of order. In addition the last 3 miles was on a very long uphill section.
SO the “ran dry” part was me, about 3/4 of a mile from our destination I crapped out. CJ was zipping in front of me so I just let him go. BTW the last 3/4 was all uphill.
At this point I was out of water , totally drained of energy….but I was carrying a banana which saved the day. Sat in the shade had the banana ( the video I took was from that spot!)and then tackled the hill. At the top of the hill was the entrance to the town and there is CJ sitting right next to the towns water fountain right at the front gate of the city with a huge smile on his face …I drank 2 liters:) Lesson for the day is to eat and drink more:)

Total Miles for the day was 16.25 ….will start the step count again tomorrow:)

So my reflection for the day( mostly in the morning) was about how the little things matter when you hike. Moved water from left to right side as my right side was hurting, it worked.. move the shoulder straps down as my neck was killing me, reduced that ache, had various pains and used the poles differently to take the pressure off.. it worked several times…. All in all they were little adjustments that had major impact. In the end , the little things in life matter and I need to pay better attention to them as small adjustments can have big impacts .

Tomorrow we are planning another 16 mile day, CJ is a little worried that it may too much so we have a backup plan but it will be hot again tomorrow so we are going to leave an hour earlier . Will get to walk with head lamps …. Never done that before!Read more