More Walking Than I Bargained For
Today I am grateful for French. I did not have time to learn enough Spanish to do more than the basics, but I still have some French in my back pocket!!
Today I got up quite early and as I was walking out the door, I bumped into Ruth again! We decided to walk together. With a full cup of coffee, we strolled in the dark through the trees.
It was really quite cruiser in the cool morning temperatures. We stopped for a coffee (of course) and then pushed on all the way to Zubiri. I decided it was too early to stop, and wanted to keep going (after another coffee).
Ruth wisely stayed in Zubiri.
I did some speed walking to Larrasoana just to see if ‘walking fast’ is fun. The places to stay in Larrasoana were full or closed. This is where it was time to buck up and call ahead to see if l if anything was available. I called a place 10km ahead and started with ‘I don’t speak Spanish, but one reservation please?’ (all in Spanish). At some point I answered ‘oui’ instead of ‘si’ and he goes ‘parlez vous francais!?’ and from there we did French! I got my name down and got ready to go. Fredericka from Italy showed up at my bench also frustrated that it was full. I told her what I’d done and she also called. We high fived in solidarity and started to put down the 10km (on top on the 28km we had already done). It went by hot and slow but we made it!
We made it to Arre, just outside of Pamplona. Again, here I was grateful for French! The host said ‘I will explain everything in French’ and proceeded to show is a map of the town and show us around the place. I was totally following everything he said! Except perhaps the humor. He said there were no showers and we would need to bathe in the river. There were showers…. So I think there was a tone that was supposed to be comedic that I didn’t follow. Ah, good old language barriers.
We walked together to the Supermercado and got a bunch of vegetables to make SALAD!! There was some sort of festival with music and large figures/costumes. It was really a cool little town.
After dinner I found a sneaky path down to the stream and soaked my feet in the cold, cold water. So good.
