Bulls, windmills and wine fountains

Hey all!

Firstly, many apologies for not writing before, all the internet places I´ve found tend to be in albergues and are usually occupied and cost a fair amount!
So I´m going to give you a wee taster of my journey so far.

I started from Pamplona last Tuesday in search for yellow arrows that lead the way to the route of the camino to Santaigo. I found them really easily at 5:30 am and was soon heading out of Pamplona for my first challenge of the journey; to climb the álto del perdon´, a huge hill that tests the legs of most walkers or ´peregrinos´(pilgrims). I was really pleased with my progress and met a bunch of great guys at the top, two Irish girls, one American, One Italian, an English girl and a Hungarian guy. Over the next 2 days we spent a lot of time together, both on the walk itself and in the evevings also.

After arriving at teh first hostel in the afternoon we heard that there was a bull run in the town that evening so we headed down into the centre to watch it all from a front row position, in the street where the bulls were due to run. Luckily we were invited into a bar that iron bars over the door so we could keep running into the bar when we wanted to duck from the bulls horns! It was a great experience and I´d love to run with them next time!

Day 2 was really hard as the legs were aching and I realised that I´d have to give some of my stuff away. After arriving in the second town (25k later) I searched through my bag and started to ask random strangers if they´d like deodorant, t-shirts, boxer shorts and much more! No-one accepted so the hostel manager said he´d take them off my hands to give them to other pilgrims!

On the third day I walked past some peaceful wind turbines as well as a wine fountain! Apparently for anyone who wants to reach their destination they have to have a cup of the glorious navarra wine, which was lovely but strange at 7;30am! The rest of the day led me through vineyards and past jumping grasshoppers with red wings. Witha lighter rucksack I was really feeling good on the camino but realised my original plan to do 35km every day was a bit too over ambitious. By mid afternoon myself and Joan, an Irish girl from Kilkenny, who is also a teacher, were very tired, sore, and baking in the 38 degree heat. Luckily we stumbled upon a little hostel where a hippy looking guy took us in and offered to drive us to the nearest supermarket after a sleep and showere. Arcardi, the hippy guy, was very hospitable but also very crazy. The ´supermarket´was actually a tiny shop which doubled up as the village bar. It was necessary, therefore, to sample a cold beer in the evening sun and we met up with the guys from the first day. We eventually stumbled back up the hill to our hostel at 10:30, which was a bit to late for an early morning start...