Pamplona to Muruzabal:  17.4 km

Psalm 84
v. 5 Blessed are those whose strength is in you, whose hearts are set on pilgrimage.

That’s us; our hearts are set on walking to Santiago with our Lord. That’s all of us, too, whose hearts are set on a faithful walk in this world until we get to our heavenly home. We are blessed as God refreshes us in dry places (v. 6). We are blessed with strength for the journey (v. 7). We pilgrims know that even just one day in the courts of the Lord, walking with him, serving with him, is better than days without number in the world’s joyless pastimes (v. 10). Lord Almighty, blessed is the one who trusts in you (v.12). May I trust in you, now and forever.

**************************

We ate our toast, washed our dishes, abandoned my old flipflops and were out at 8:30. The sidewalks on our way through the city were embedded with silver shell markers leading us onward. Marching with vigor, our eyes were drawn to the right by a glitzy roulette sign. Soon a man accosted us. “A Santiago?” he asked. Si. He waved his finger back the way we had come; while we were looking to the right we should have been crossing the street to the left. The wages of sin are definitely losing your way. In the distance we could see windmills (the mammoth electricity-generating kind) lining a ridge. Is that where we were going? A car horn honked sharply–at us. We’d missed another turn. Silly pilgrims.

Up a hill about three km outside Pamplona we came to Cizur Menor, where we putzed around for a half hour, poking our heads into the open 12th-century Knights Templar church Sanjuanista, stopping at a bar for cafe con leche and the WC, getting a few groceries for lunch. Then it was uphill again, curving through fields now brown yet still lovely. We missed the unmarked path to Guendulain, which the guidebook said was a ruined church and pilgrim hospice. Once well past it, we turned around and saw much more than ruins rising above a line of trees. Maurice would not let me go back to explore, though as we ascended we had nice views as the lower portions of the buildings came into view.

The windmills ahead drew closer. At noon we cruised into Zariquiegui where the sunlit San Andras church with its lovely Romanesque doorway sat to the right in a small park with a fuente. The plain west end of the church seemed to be the town fronton.

A few steps up the road we sat outside at a busy bar and enjoyed a tortilla. Two Argentinian ladies shared our table, then two Irish lasses, Eimear (rhymes with Beemer) and Sinead. At 1:00 we were off again, through brown fields and up mountains, pressing toward the windmills, with acre after acre of dead sunflowers to our right; I tried to imagine how they looked two months ago as I plodded up and up and up (in my comfy new shoes). Finally we reached the Alto del Perdon (790 m), as in “pardon me while I collapse on the altitude of this mountain.” On a breezy plateau where lots of pilgrims were taking a break just below enormous windmills on the ridge to the left, the windmill company has erected whimsical metal cutouts of pilgrims on their way to Santiago. An inscription reads, “Donde se cruza el camino del viento con el de las estrellas” (“where the way of the wind crosses the way of the stars”).

On the Alto del Perdon (photo by Eimear)

The way down was reputed to be difficult but it seemed no worse than any dirt trail, until we rounded a bend and saw the real path winding out before us like a river of bubbles, except the bubbles were loose round stones, baseball size, and the slope was steep as an isosceles triangle; it was uncertain footing at best. At last the path flattened to a smooth dirt track between tangled bushes, rich plowed farmland peeking through on our left and patchwork fields sloping away to our right. Flocks of little birds flitted from branch to branch ahead of us in the afternoon sun. A giant art deco caterpillar wiggled aside from our steps. The air was filled with…what was it? A delightful herbal scent….yes, licorice; it must have been fennel.

In the morning I had emailed ahead to the private albergue El Jardin de Muruzabal and they were reserving a room for us, a double room with an actual private bathroom. We turned in to their driveway at 3:35 pm and were greeted on the spacious porch by Alicia. We signed up for dinner too. As we relaxed on the porch more and more pilgrims walked in, from Australia, Germany, Brazil, Italy. “The world comes to my house,” said Alicia, quickly filling all her rooms and beds. When the downpour started, even more pilgrims (including the Irish lasses) appeared on the porch for shelter; Alicia happily sold them refreshing drinks. The rain prevented us from borrowing the house bikes and pedaling two km to visit the “jewel of the Camino” Romanesque church just off the main trail in Eunate; Maurice did not want to do this side trip (“Aren’t we tired enough?” Well, yes), so the rain prevented a disagreement. We did our usual shower and laundry, then I vegged with a few other women in front of The Way, which our hostess’s husband popped into the VCR while dinner cooked. What fun it was to see some of the very places we had just walked, and the views that had been fogged out in the Pyrenees. Dinner was delicious, served homestyle: a big salad platter, then pasta, then thin tender pork cutlets with whole sauteed red peppers (a local specialty), and packaged ice cream cones for dessert. And wine of course. We rolled into bed happy.