16th April 2024 Off to Zubiri

After a wonderful sleep in a room with a hot shower and comfortable bed we headed downstairs for our buffet breakfast.  Multiple choices from apple cake and pastries to breads, choices of cheeses, hams etc and either hot or cold boiled eggs.

Hot coffee and breakfast done we headed upstairs to re-pack our backpacks and head out the door, past the wonderful, patterned floors on the ground floor all made from pebbles laid vertically in the 1700’s.  The weather was still pretty horrible with lots of showers and quite cold so we rugged up slightly more, put on our wet weather gear and headed out.

Down the road to the famous 790 kilometres to Santiago road sign and we headed into the forest on the way to Burguete.  This forest is famous/infamous for its part in the Navarre Witch trials in the 1500’s as it was believed the witches had a coven in this forest. There is some graffiti on the way into the town depicting the witches with a boiling pot.

Burguete was made famous as Ernest Hemingway spent some time here on a holiday fishing and the piano he used is still in the Burguete Hostal – apparently!  I found it last Camino but we didn’t bother this time.  I just loved the pollarded trees down the street and especially in the church yard.  This style of pruning and training the branches is very popular in Spain.

Turn right!  Down off the main street and over a small bridge into cow territory and a farm with many cows in stalls sheltering from the rain and the cold but we trudged on and came to another field of horses.  They saw us coming and must have thought we had food for them as they came over but unfortunately we had nothing for them.  They didn’t seem to mind too much as they were still by the fence when we started walking again. Their coats were very wet and the hair seemed to be quite clumped.  I wondered if they would grow a heavier coat for winter and now they are shedding it as Spring had arrived.

It was still very wet and we started noticing a lot of slugs on the road – some black and about 7cm long and some pale yellow about 5cm long. There was even a giant brown one about 12cm long!  The things you notice when it is pouring and you are keeping yourself motivated!

We stopped at the next little town for a coffee and a slice of tortillas patatas in a little café – it was lovely and warm in there so it was a little harder to leave when the time came but we knew we needed to push on.

The forest was lovely as we even saw where a woodpecker had been pecking at a tree to get the bugs inside.  The floor started getting harder to walk on as the slate “steps” were like the spine of a dinosaur and you really had to watch where you put your foot and our walking poles were worth every cent (and a whole lot more!).

We got to Alto de Erro and the man in the food van was closing all his umbrellas down as the wind was getting stronger.  We headed past him and started our descent into Zubiri – still some 5 km away.

I remember the bad things about the last Camino including the hard bits but there must have been some serious weather in the last 6 years as the track down was perilous in places. We also noticed that the signage had also faded a lot and needed some attention as it was hard to see some of it. 

My back had started to spasm and I was leaning progressively more to the right so we were very happy to finally get to the bridge into Zubiri.  It was another 750m or so to our bed for the night, Albergue Suseia, with the lovely Sara.  She could see that I was bent significantly so she carried my pack to our room.  Tablets downed and we headed down to dinner which was marvellous.  We were so impressed with her meal; beautifully presented from the salad right through to the dessert.  I would give the food a top rating and the best so far on our Camino. We saw a few people from the night at Orisson and finally got to have a chat to them as there were only about 14 guests.

I spoke with Alisha whose Mum is Scottish and her Dad (who she is walking with) is from Trinidad & Tobago.  I hadn’t had a chance to talk with her in Orisson but she was just lovely.  She is still living in the USA but desperately wants to move to Scotland with her sister and is doing everything she can to get there.  While her parents are no longer together, their meeting back in the 50’s was the stuff of town rumours but love conquered that.  They had a wonderful life and moved to Trinidad & Tobago and I think Alisha said her Mum just loves it there and will not move – Scotland is too cold for her now!

After dinner we had hot baths and that really helped with the spasms as did a lot of stretching. Off to Pamplona tomorrow!