A walk into history. Distance 20.9 km (13 miles / 16.0) to go - 710.6km)

I must confess that I feel I short-changed the albergue Suseia. I was flummoxed when I arrived after having to take a taxi, and this may have led to my short-changing them. Tonight I sit in a luxury hotel (more on that later), sitting in my white bath robe, sipping champagne and eating caviar, clear headed and remorseful because I did not fawn over the Suseia as much as I should.

I would highly recommend this place to anyone seeking reservations at an albergue that is clean, has great service and good meals (their ham and Swiss is to die for), is user friendly and ... for a small fee, they will do your laundry! (Don't worry Alicia, they don't fold underwear either!)

Now, full disclosure, I lied about the champagne, caviar and ham and swiss.

We had a real nice meal last night with great table guests from central Pennsylvania, the Phillipines, Oregon, Uruguay, Japan and... damn, I really need to take better notes. Mary (from P.A.) was even kind enough to take a picture of our main course, Stuffed from Navarro, which I ate, thank you very much. It was very good. 

My only problem was, when Alex brought me a salad, and I declined it, he substituted the soup de jour. What are the odds that the substitute for a non-vegetable eating growing boy like me would be... Vegetable Soup?!

As stated before, the conversation was great, stories to share, sore muscles and blisters to commiserate over; a good time was had by all!

They had a combination dining area/lounge where we were allowed to sit after dinner, allowing me to stay up past lights out and blog about my day one travails. After publishing it (and discovering that my pictures are not currently available for inclusion in the blog) I headed off to my assigned bed (at about 11:30) which sat high atop the room number "1" bunk bed! Yes, upper bunk!

I hadn't slept in an upper bunk since 1972 when the U.S. Navy and I parted ways. Have you ever seen an old man try to get into and out of an upper bunk? It ain't pretty! I thought I would break a leg. I slept well (the beds were quite comfortable), but not for long. As has become my norm, I got all the sleep I needed in about 4.5 hours, then lay in bed wondering if my three room mates would begrudge me screaming in pain at  4 a.m. while lying on the floor with a broken hip suffered while trying to extract myself from the top bunk.

I had been thinking about the problem I had with the pictures and thought (erroneously) that I may have a solution. So I returned to the lounge and tried my solution. It didn't work but as long as I had risked life and limb getting out of bed I might as well stay up and catch up on my blog. When you write at 5 a.m. you sometimes do not mention great service and accommodations in your writings.

Breakfast was served from 6-8:30, with check out time at 9:30, so I finished the blog, ate, then went searching for my clean laundry. By the time I made it back to the room, Enrico had departed and Jim and Mary were both vertical! Packed and hit the road! But where?

Because I had ridden into town in a taxi, I had no idea where to pick up the scent of yesterday's hike. I went to the main road and first turned left. I quickly decided that there was no bridge in that direction (I had been told everyone came over an old bridge from the trail across the stream.

There was a lot of early Sunday morning activity in downtown Zubiri. Judging from the noise and masses of people in the street I guessed that, at 8:30 a.m. the bars had just closed. Either that or they were serving extra wine at church.

As I approached a peregrino who was donning her pack, she suddenly looked up and asked me how my legs were doing. She looked as if she knew me and shortly I realized who it was. The young lady with the electrolyte pills that had rescued me from my prone position near the summit on the first day. (I previously stated that it was Ashley but now that I was not peering through tears of anguish I could see it was another angel). We talked briefly and I invited her to walk with me. She declined, saying she could barely walk due to severe blisters. I did not have a clever little pill that would make them go away so I felt bad. She turned to walk in to a bar (I believe) , saying they had something to help her feel better. Okay, maybe it was a drug store.

The walk this morning was nearly non-descript. We did walk past an industrial site where there was a sign proclaiming that "Magna" had been adjacent to the Camino for 175 years! Magna apparently runs an open pit mine that harvests small rocks.

The rest of the day was spent walking, and walking. Nothing too steep, but nothing too short either. The guide book puts the distance at 20.9 km (12.9 miles), but Strava measured 16 miles! It felt like 20!

A 300 year old ranch house, still actively raising sheep!

As we finally neared the ancient arch of historic Pamplona, I found myself at a cross walk with Karen and Ely from the dinner at the monastery hotel. 

We posed for pictures in front of the large historic arch (Portal de Francia) then entered the town. They had made reservations so they peeled off at that point as I continued to plod along through, then out of, the entire historic district. 

As I saw the old buildings give way to newer structures it started to rain yet again. As I stopped to put my rain coat back on for the (approximately) sixth time, Sarah of Amsterdam walked up. She had just bumped into Ashley, also of day one, and they had lunch together. She said she was moving on to the next town (5km) for the night. We bid each other adieu and I began to look for a hotel in the rain (all the albergues I saw coming through town were "completo". At this point I would take the first restaurant or hotel I saw. And that hotel was the Hotel Tres Reyes (three crowns?, although it has more stars than that).

I walked in the front door, quite wet, quite muddy and quite a mess, walked past men in suit and tie talking to women bedecked with jewelry. I expected to be turned away but instead was tolerated very politely, even given a Peregrino discount and complimentary fruit tray with large bottle of water delivered to my room overlooking a large Cathedral. The city itself dates back to the first century B.C., way before Ernest Hemingway!

So I sit here tonight in comfort and luxury, but don't tell my wife!

And Honey, remember, just bend your left elbow.