The Trouble with Rest Days

You can thank all the blog posts to the extra time I have today, hanging around in Pamplona waiting to heal. Lauren and I tore up our bodies on the Roncevalles and Zubiri days, jumping into a lifestyle that no one can really prepare for. So here we are in Pamplona, with our friends walking ahead and so tired its a little hard to really sightsee (though we've nearly worn ourselves ragged again trying.)

Pamplona is a beautiful city, with close, colorful buildings, an absurdly blue sky, fountains, tapas, statues and cobblestones and lots of pilgrim's. 

We began our rest day in the Cafe Iruña, an Art Deco cafe on the plaza that was a favorite of Hemingway's. My hot chocolate was like lava it was so hot and thick, and we had wonderful time hydrating and chatting.

After breakfast we sat in the plaza and relaxed, watching worker raise the tents for the festival of San Fermin (what we call the running of the Bulls) which will happen in just a few weeks. I used some of my precious cell phone data to google shin exercises and heel protecting lacing techniques while Lauren catnapped on the sun. 

We wandered around town and stumbled upon a lovely mass happening in the beautiful mishmash that is the church of Saint Saturnin, a Frankenstein church that is half gothic-half neoclassical. Literally it is a gothic church with a neoclassical Nave and apse stuck on. It made for interesting architecture, making one bot quite sure where the focal point was... And yet it was completely wonderful in its odd uniqueness. To see two such different sensibilities crashed together seemed very special and somehow Spanish, too. Lauren and I mumbled our way through mass and then took our time exploring the strange church, filled with gold and stained glass, Roman arches and gothic vaults and beneath it numbered graves from when the parishioners were buried beneath its floors. 

We wore ourselves put walking the city when we needed to rest, though the day was beautiful and we found lots of charming nooks and crannies and even the citadel gardens. Our lunch was super weird--a meat sandwich we got in a butcher's shop (what possessed us to step so rashly into this meat brick of a bad decision is beyond me)

 then returned to the albergue to rest. Only our friend Maréa remains of the group we've been with from the beginning, and it is a little disheartening to stay in one place as they walk on towards our shared goal, no matter how lovely Pamplona may be. 

And yet! We will go for tapas tonight and enjoy ourselves, and tomorrow we'll get back on the trail and see how far we can go (I don't mean to over exaggerate our fatigue--nothing a day of rest won't fix) Ultreia!