PAMPLONA TO PUENTE LA REINA

This was just one huge climb up a mountain, but what a view at the top! It’s the famous metal sculptures that you see in every Camino de Santiago guide book. To stand there with them felt like such an accomplishment. I’d dreamt of it, launched a plan, did it, and there we were. 

Twenty-one km in a guidebook is very different on the ground on a relentlessly hot day. About 5km from Puente de Reina I saw 2 pilgrims, an older French couple, in front of me talking and laughing with 2 policemen in a car. Then the police pulled their car over into a parking spot and started emptying out the back seat. Really? Were they going to give the couple a ride to Puente de Reina? I started running towards them. Hobbling really. I called out! Yo tambien! Me too! Por favor! We all squeezed into the back seat and they drove right into the next town and dropped the couple at their hotel! It was like heaven! Like a prayer answered! I gladly walked the few blocks to my hostal. 

This day was worth every step up. (And ride in a police car!) And Puente la Reina is a fascinating old city. There’s a temple that goes back to times of Sephardic Jews. Our hotel was literally next to a river. At night we could listen to the water flowing. It was also a remodeled wool factory which they kept as a museum downstairs. 

We’re really grinning in frustration. This restaurant in Puente de Reina would not serve us for hours. I asked for olives and she brought 2 beers instead. We were starving. We finally ate around 10pm. Normal for locals, frustrating for tired, hungry pilgrims!