The first day

First off... Dan has arrived!

Secondly... I´m writing on an international keyboard and I have 16 minutes before my time runs out on the computer, so forgive me in advance if I make any typographical mistakes.

So. Dan´s first day in Spain started off a little rough. The metro workers have been on strike so the metro was shut down from the airport. Meaning, for the first time in my life I had to figure out how to use the bus system. It took us 2 hours to get back to the hotel, and then we napped like no tomorrow. We took the train the following day to Pamplona and happened to see random castles and mountains along the way. Once in Pamplona we met with our arranged taxi (a minivan that takes pilgrims to various points along the trail) and arrived in the beautiful and olden city of Saint Jean Pied-de-Port. I successfully had a complete conversation with an old Frenchman who didn´t speak English or Spanish (yea my year and a half of French!) and we stayed in a hostel for the night.

We set off this morning at 6:30. We knew in advance that today was going to be one of the most grueling days of the camino, but it was still surprising how much it kicked our butts. We crossed over the Pyrnees and have the sore backs to prove it. At one point we stopped for a break and looked out over the from our gorgeous vantage point. We both decided that we had never in our lives seen mountains like that before. The little villages below were shrouded in fog and we were hiking above the clouds. There was nothing but mountains and more mountains, but up where we were there were all these different herds of sheep and horses just wandering around without being fenced in. It was so cute because some of them wore cowbells and you could hear them from practically wherever you were. There were also a bunch of vultures circling as if they were waiting for one of us to drop, and we think someone did at one point. There was a helicopter that flew over us which we think was a Medevac taking someone off the trail, but from where we were on the trail it looked like it was headed straight towards us altitude-wise. Literally 90% of the hike was uphill, and then the last 10% was a crazy series of switchbacks going back down to about the height where we started. The last 10% was what killed our knees and feet though, and (although Dan is sore too) I´m rigid like Pinocchio because I´m so sore.

Tomorrow we´re not going to go the recommended distance because we have to kill time so we can arrive in Pamplona late enough to see the Running of the Bulls. We can only stay in each town one night and then we have to move on, so it´s a little bit of us playing the system, but also taking it easy after the truly hellacious day we had today.

So... we don´t know when the next time we´ll be able to update you all. Just know that for the next couple of days we´ll be taking it easy on relatively easy terrain so I´m not anticipating any problems. Tonight we´re sleeping in a refugio with around 100 other people and Dan and I are on the top bunks =(. Gotta head out, my time´s almost up. Love you all, and take care!