The Ministry of Funny Walks

Constanze has a swollen knee and walks with stiff leg that she swings out to the side. Malta has blisters and walks with a bandy-legged gate. Three days of walking and we all now have a few aches and pains. My own funny walk comes out mainly when I take my boots off and put on my plimsoles. Then, when my shoes offer no protection for my blisters, I walk with arms swinging like someone walking over hot coals.

The hostel in Pamplona was new and vast, but completely open so that snores, late night cooking and kiddy gigglings echo around and make sleep all but impossible. The late night pilgrims (including a group of cycling kids from Paderborn) don't quieten down until midnight (if then) and the early morning people start crashing about self-righteously from 5pm.

"And from he who has not even what he has shall be taken away"
The way out of Pamplona was along the Calle Mayor, then through parks and finally out into fields. Matthias made an appreciative comment about Alessandro's stick which he had selected on the first day, but which was nowhere near as manicured as Matthias's. At this outbreak of stick envy I predicted Robin Hood style fights and sure enough the two squared up, Alessandro made one well aimed strike and Matthias's stick broke in two. Matthias's reaction: "Good, now I have two!" The airline still haven't found Matthias's backpack never mind returned it, and he continues to walk in the clothes he travelled in with flip-flops hanging from his belt and a spare vest in his jacket pocket. The stick he worked on all night was now just a useless burden. He didn't care. To the rest of us who have pared down our belongings to what we think is a bare minimum he is teaching us detachment.

Today's walk was a climb over a line of hills topped with wind turbines and the monument at the Alto del Perdin, and then a descent down the other side. As always the descent was more terrible than the ascent, because it is then that one's feet slip forward in the boots and the blisters and sores howl in protest. The views from the top both forward and back are tremendous (I've tried to show this be the photos which are taken from both sides of the monument).

Puente la Reina (pepper town)
Finally arriving in Puente la Reina we check into the Refugio which is run by the Padres Reparados and then head into town to buy something to cook for supper. Most shops are closed but there is a fantastic market selling mainly red peppers. Behind the stalls men sit cranking the handles of barrel-shaped furnaces to roast the peppers and the smell fills the air of the town very much like the smell of hops dominates a brewery town.

Puente el Reina is a perfect camino town. The bridge from which the town takes its name was built in the eleventh century for pilgrims. A main street extends from one end of this bridge, of fine buildings including religious houses, auberges and the beautiful church at which there was a 8pm vigil mass. It's basically a Gothic structure but with the enormous multi-tiered reredos that must (I imagine) come from the age when gold poured into Spain from the new world.