We´re at the end of yet another day of hiking the camino. It´s starting to get pretty serious now. I read somewhere that most pilgrim´s first few days on the camino are a "physical experience," and I would definitely have to agree. The knee is pretty much ok for the most part--it still hurts, but only when I´m not moving or when I´ve been going downhill for too long. I don´t know if that´s an indication that it´s getting better or that I´m just getting desensitized to the pain somehow. Discovered my first blister a day or two ago, and have the second one coming right up in the same spot on my other foot, but aside for the typical aches and pains everything else is in order.
It has gotten hot as hell too. Day one was just rain, and day two was partly rainy, but got a lot nicer around the afternoon. Yesterday it started heating up a little bit, and today the heat was really on. I must have drunk like three gallons of water, and every time I got to a fountain I chugged at least a litre (sometimes almost two) before refilling my bottles, but I still couldn´t get enough water in. I had that really uncomfortable, unpleasant puffy-hand sensation you get when you´re dehydrated, even though I almost felt like throwing up at a few points from drinking so much water. Also, I´m pretty sure I got sunburned THROUGH my shirt sleeves today, which I didn´t know was physically possible. Spain in the summer is no joke, and I´m in the northern part.
But it´s still been a really great time! Even with all of the physical troubles I´m experiencing. I´ve been discovering the wonderful, wonderful thing that is the pilgrim´s menu at a lot of restaurants along the camino do for dinner. Lots of places do a special deal where you pay between 9-15 euros and get a really awesome meal. Three courses, desert, wine, and the company you sit with at the table is always fellow pilgrims, so you get a ton of really nice dinner conversation out of it too. The multiple course thing is also important in that I get really hungry after walking 15+ miles, so I´ve been taking advantage of the offer wherever I can find it.
The towns I´ve stayed at for the past few days have been: Zubiri, Pamplona, and today it´s Puente la Reina for those keeping track at home. Zubiri didn´t have much going on, but it had a really nice refugio where I spent the night. Pamplona was the first major city along the camino, which was very cool considering it´s been all farms and tiny towns with 200 people so far. I also ended up staying at a refugio in Pamplona staffed and frequented pretty much 100% by Germans (the Camino is very popular and well know in Germany), so I was able to speak German the whole time I was there, which was really nice considering how long it´s been since I´ve really used the language.
Puente la Reina is on the smaller side, but one thing that IS going on this week, and something I only found out about 30 minutes before it started, is a running of the bulls!! The biggest and most famous is in Pamplona actually, but I missed it by about a week and a half, so it was awesome to get here and have the opportunity to check out one for myself. The atmosphere at the place was just electric, and I got quite the shock when the bulls came running down into the arena. The main street was blockaded off with gates to "direct traffic," as it were, and all of the shop fronts had metal grates in front of them to keep the bulls from destroying the storefronts. The town square had a spectator ring set up around it, with 4-5 inches of dirt thrown over the cobblestones in the middle. It wasn´t a bullfight with a matador--basically just a bunch of the local 20-somethings who were feeling up to the challenge. Pretty much anyone could jump in or out of the arena to try their luck. As they were dodging the bulls a lot of the guys were attempting to put big metal rings about 3-4 inches across over the bulls´ horns, and every time they managed to do it the crowd exploded with applause. The whole ordeal lasted aboiut two hours.
Still haven´t picked tomorrow´s destination yet, but I´m definitely getting an early start. I´ve been heading out around 7:30-ish for the past few days, but the earlier you get out the door the less time you have to spend walking in the heat of the afternoon, so I´m gonna try to get up and go as soon as possible tomorrow morning.
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