Jimandi

Walked today: 5.9 mi. Camino2026: 20mi.

After a normal breakfast, we bought 2 sandwiches to carry with us for lunch, as there are no other eatery options until tonight’s dinner in our albergue at 7:00.

It was a brief walk to the entrance of old Puente la Reina.

We continued through the main street to the bridge (Puente), crossed it over the Rio Arga, exiting the town…

…and began walking on a dirt path along the river (unseen).

After about 2 miles we reached the base of a mountain and began a difficult climb for the next mile or so.

After a few steps we began to witness another camino improvement project.

On our previous caminos, this walk was made more difficult, due to aggressive erosion, over the years, digging increasingly deeper gullies down and across the road, thus adding to the difficulty of the steep elevation.

Today all the gullies, some several feet deep, were gone. The path is now relatively smooth, paved with a mortar/gravel mixture with varied amounts of loose gravel on top.

Overall, the entire 1 mile climb was much easier than on previous caminos.

Once at the top, we entered the village of Maneru, with its attractive buildings, pristine streets, a small park and village square… with great potential to welcome pilgrims. However, since first walking through Mañeru in 2014, services (albergues, bars/restrooms) available to pilgrims have gradually diminished until today’s visit, when we were presented with no services and an generally unwelcoming ambiance. We stopped at an empty bench in the village square across from an apparent resident, perusing a newspaper, who completely ignored us, not even making eye contact.

After a 10 minute repose in the otherwise zero activity village square, we disappointingly walked on.

Fortunately for us, the disappointment of Mañeru has never lasted very long because as soon as we walk out of the village, a positive anticipation builds as we await our first of many cover-photo looks at the uniquely picturesque village of Cirauqui.

We walked into Cirauqui at 9:40 and stopped at a food stand/restroom with outside terrace seating (the only one open today) and we settled in… our plan to have a place to chill until our room was available circa. 1:00 p.m..

We contributed to the local economy by purchasing fresh orange juice, bananas, a Radler (50/50 blend of lemon and beer), and bottled water in exchange for a reasonably comfortable seat with table and access to a restroom until they close at noon!

We passed the time blogging and reading and had an interesting chat with a charming couple from Singapore who were sampling several segments of the Camino Frances, their first camino, which was arranged by a travel agent.

At noon, we gathered our stuff and guided the couple to the iglesia (church) at the pinacle of Cirauqui, where they were to meet their taxi to return them to Puente la Reina at 12:30. The iglesia, coincidentally was adjacent to our alberque. We said our goodbyes to the couple and found new seats on a not-so-comfortable concrete bench beside the iglesia until we were able to checkin at 1:00.

Once in our room, we washed sweaty clothes and hung them out to dry in the warm, dry air, got showers, ate our sandwiches purchased this morning after breakfast and blogged, read and napped the afternoon away until dinner at 7:00 p.m.

Dinner was prepared by the owner who leans toward vegan cuisine. Consequently, we began with a simple salad of lettuce, walnut, apple chunks dressed with balsamic vinegar and olive oil. Second course was a mushroom and chickpea stew. Dessert was a cup of vanilla custard. The red wine was a local vintage unlabeled.

The dinner was shared family style with two other pilgrim couples. One couple from San Diego, California had walked six different Caminos all converging in Santiago. The other couple, walking their second Camino Frances was from Australia.

We said our goodbyes around 8:30 and retired to our respective rooms for the day.

Our bodies are still recovering from jetlag and the time change plus our muscles are aching from being tested by the up and downhill challenges of these first two days.

If our past experiences are any indication, we will begin to feel stronger and better acclimated to our environment in the next few days. As they say, “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”.

Walked: 5.8+7.8 mi. Camino2026: 14 mi.

We left our backpacks in the Hotel Yoldi lobby as our prearranged taxi arrived at 5:30 sharp to take us to Zariquiegui.

This morning’s sunrise accompanied us as we scaled the 900 elevation to the Alto del Perdón.

After a brief rest we headed west … down the other side of Alto del Perdón.

Much to our surprise the usual hazardous walking surface on the descent had been changed for the better by removal of most of the small, loose stones that previously covered the path.

Linda has always dreaded this section for fear of a camino-ending fall or twisted ankle or knee. Today, the phrase, “the Camino provides” had never been truer to us.

Once we reached the base of the mountain, another project was also underway to apparently make further improvements to the path leading into Uterga. A “road under construction” sign blocked the way and pointed to an alternate path through the adjacent wheat field to bypass construction activités.

A favorite and only breakfast stop in Uterga was locked up tight, so we continued on to the next village, Muruzábal, where both of its two bars were also closed up tight.

So, with our stomachs growling, we walked on to Obanos, which also had no services open.

We continued on to the next town, Puente La Reina, our destination and had breakfast after nearly 8 miles of walking.

A tostadas and cafe-con-leche breakfast amply sated our hunger after 3+ hours of walking, as we relaxed on the terrace of Jakue bar/restaurant/Hotel/Albergue, our temporary residence until tomorrow morning.

Our backpacks were waiting for us in the Jakue reception area, confirming that the Correos mochila transport service and Jim’s itinerary input on their website were working well together. All we did was leave our mochilas (backpacks), properly identified, in our Hotel lobby this morning and they were picked up and delivered to todays destination without any additional intervention on Jim’s part other than his itinerary input nearly two months ago. The confirmation of the reliability of this Correos service eliminates a potential stressor for our Camino.

Our Jakue albergue room (double room with ensuite bathroom) was ready at 11:30, 90 minutes sooner than promised. First order of business was checking the quality of our room, shower and twin beds (verified by 30 minute body recovery naps).

Jim volunteered to do the laundry, taking advantage of a modern coin operated washer (6€) and dryer (3€).

Dinner is available at 6 p.m. in the Jakue restaurant, so we spent the remaining afternoon recovering, resting, napping, blogging, reading and playing a card game of Hand&Foot.

Dinner was filling, healthy but nothing to write in a blog about. After an hour or so of chillin’ out and prepping for tomorrow it was lights out for day one on Camino 2026.

Pamplona is our most visited location in Spain, Camino2026 being our 17th. We have stayed at 4 different properties in Pamplona since 2012. We have walked, flown, taken a taxi or taken a train to or from Pamplona. And fortunately, Pamplona is among our top 5 favorite Camino locations.

Pamplona has a rich history. Originally named Iruña, it was a settlement founded by the Vascones, the ancestors of the modern day Basque people of the Navarre region of northern eastern Iberian Peninsula. Transformed into a city by the Roman General Pompey in 74 BC. It’s name was subsequently changed to Pompaleo and it gained prominence as a Roman military outpost.

Pamplona became an independent Kingdom in 824 after centuries of resistance to Frankish and Moorish expansion, that occurred after the fall of the Roman Empire.

Pamplona’s history is marked by its strategic importance in ancient times, vibrant cultural traditions, and significant architectural heritage, making it a city of great historical interest.

As in previous caminos, we took a walk this morning to help our bodies to overcome jet lag and to accelerate acclimation to the time difference.

Also, the next few days are forecasted to be hot early in the day, so we began walking at 6:00 a.m. to gauge how quickly it actually got too warm for us.

Zariquiegue is on the Camino Frances about 6 miles from our hotel, so we walked about half the way to “Zari….” them returned toward our hotel. (We could have walked to Z and gotten a taxi back to our hotel, but our method saved us a $25 taxi fare.)

We stopped at a nearby ATM on our way back to the hotel to build our stash of euros for daily expenses.

The temperature was still cool with a nice breeze with less than 50% RH by the time we arrived back at our hotel at 9:30 a.m.

Armed with our “test” walk information, we will plan to begin our Camino2026 walk tomorrow morning at 5:30 a.m.

The remainder of the morning was spent rearranging our day packs (which we will carry) and backpacks, (which will be transported by Correos daily.)

Linda selected the La Comidas restaurant for her birthday lunch, an eatery we discovered on last year’s stay in the city,

After our main meal, we walked around the Plaza de Castillo area to burn some calories and blunt a potential glucose spike. Pamplona is a great place to walk and commune with over two thousand years of history.

With an early start planned for tomorrow morning, we got to bed early after another enjoyable day and birthday in one of our favorite places.

A brief 10 minute ride to GSP, check-in (5 minutes) and TSA pre-check (3minutes) got us to two somewhat comfortable seats near gate A2 by 9:00 a.m.

Our reward for conforming to airline/airport guidelines for international flights and avoiding the potential crowd on this Memorial Day weekend was a long wait until our 12:37 (on time) flight to CLT.

The 23 minute flight from GSP to CLT was on schedule and smooth, in spite of the low cloud ceiling.

We touched down at 1:02 and after 28 minutes of taxiing among the suburbs of CLT, we finally arrived at our assigned gate and deplaned at 1:34!!

The walk from E8 (somewhere in NC) to D5 took a mere 10 minutes, where we found two vacant seats and settled in for the wait for Flight 748 to Madrid scheduled to depart at 3:35.

We boarded on time, but were delayed about a half-hour to correct a mechanical issue.

Every seat on the plane was occupied, the meals (dinner & breakfast) were palatable and free, even for the economy section. The 7-hour plus flight was smooth and uneventful.

After deplaning we walked for 10-15 minutes in order to join a very long queue for customs/border control. We both completed the new EES (Entry/Exit System) registration consisting of: passport number, full name, face photograph, 4-finger prints. We also input the dates of our visit for monitoring visa overstays. Jim registered via automated kiosk and Linda had to register manually via a live border/customs patrol agent after the kiosk didn’t like her finger prints capture.

On our next visit to the Schengen Area, the EES system should speed up the time spent waiting to clear customs/border control… since we will already be in the EES and there will be many more kiosks available to clear us through than the current staffing of customs/border control officers.

After clearing customs we boarded the MAD subway to the baggage claim section of Terminal 4. We were relieved and then, ecstatic, when we found both of our backpacks waiting in the baggage claim area… allowing Camino2026 to continue.

We found a cart, loaded our beautiful, brilliantly blue IKEA wrapped parcels, found an elevator to go up two levels to locate an Iberian counter to obtain our boarding passes and check our bags on the 12:20 flight to Pamplona.

All went well at Iberian allowing us to proceed through the airport security check, which also occurred without incident.

The next 3 hours were spent chillin, having our first cafe-con-leche of Camino2026 and people watching until boarding the next-to-final leg of our journey to the starting point of Camino2026.

We boarded the Iberian flight on time and a little more than an hour later deplaned at Pamplona regional airport, quickly collected our backpacks and selected from a long line of taxis awaiting our arrival to take us the final 10 minutes to our Hotel on the edge of the old town. The Hotel Yoldi checkin process was fast and seamless.

So, we safely completed the more than 5000 mile trip from our home in Greenville to the northeastern province of Navarre, crossing 5 time zones in less than 24 hours to reach the starting point of Camino2026 in Pamplona, Spain. Buen Camino!

We originally planned for Camino2026 to begin on May 1. However, on November 6, 2025, our grandson, Mac, shared that he and Anna had become engaged and asked that we save May 22 for their planned wedding.

So, we tentatively set May 24 as our departure date for Camino2026 and decided to start our walk in Pamplona as we did in 2025.

And, because of the ever increasing popularity of the Camino Frances, we decided to reserve each night’s lodging before leaving for Spain. Subsequently, we began the tedious process on November 18, 2025 with our first contact being via email with a hard-to-get albergue in the small village of Cirauqui.

Once we successfully secured this first reservation, we plugged it into our tentative itinerary (a spreadsheet based on Camino2025) and proceeded to fill-in other accommodations, giving priority to the hard-to-book ones. We completed the last of the 49 total bookings on April 18. We used (1)Booking.com, (2) email, (3) Whatapp and (4) available property websites to secure the reservations.

In parallel with our booking process, we began gathering the items we would each need for our 7-week trek and displayed them on our guest bedroom bed. We added to and subtracted from our respective collections until we were satisfied we were each left with only “essentials”.

On May 11, we packed our respective backpacks and flight carryons/ daypacks to verify that there was room for everything and that it was comfortably transportable.

Last year, we used Correos, the Spanish postal service, to transport our backpacks to and from each daily destinations. The service was very reliable and much less expensive than the other transport services we used on previous caminos. However, once in Spain, it was difficult to pay at their website, requiring a visit to a major office in Pamplona, delaying our walk to our next destination. We also struggled finding someone to print our itinerary from the Correos website for the bag tags and then looking for materials for securely attaching the tags to our backpacks.

So, with the Camino 2026 itinerary completed and each night’s lodging reserved, we were able to do all the “front end” prep work for backpack (mochila) transport from the comfort of our home, benefiting from a superior internet signal, color printer and “golf bag name tags”, easily purchased from Amazon.

Finally, since we need to take trekking poles, scissors and a pocket swiss-army knife with us, carrying them in our fanny pack or carryon pack is not an option given TSA regulations for our flights. Thus, we put these items into our backpacks, which we check. To keep our checked backpacks dry and safe from handling and/or mishandling by airline and airport handlers and automated equipment… we found a lightweight (11oz), inexpensive ($5.00) plastic, zippered duffle bag at IKEA. It’s called FRAKTA.

We expected the FRAKTA to be disposable, but it has held up now for 3 caminos going to and from Spain. It appears to be able to make the journey for Camino2026 too. Once we arrive in Spain, we fold it and stuff it in the section between the back support and hydration bladder and accept the added weight. But with its low cost it could be discarded once in Spain to save the extra 11oz weight to carry. By using the transport service, weight is no longer an issue for us.

Larry, our generous friend, neighbor and ardent follower of our blog, has offered to give us a ride to GSP on Sunday morning, so unless we’ve forgotten something, we’re ready to embark on Camino 2026.

Our Caminos to date:

Camino 2026 will be, logistically, similar to Camino 2025. We’ll begin again in Pamplona and end in Santiago 46 days later. And, it will be our second opportunity to walk across Northern Spain in late spring/early summer.

While the route will be the same, we will be staying at 10 properties for the first time. (For 3 properties, it will be our 8th return visit.) Our mental and physical challenges will be different, as will our encounters with new pilgrims and service providers. And we look forward to the renewal of acquaintances and friendships developed during prior caminos.

Because of the ever-increasing popularity of the Camino Frances (over 500,000 pilgrims in 2025), to reduce a potential stressor, we recently completed bookings for each night’s stay to eliminate the risk of arriving at our planned destination and finding all suitable accommodations “completo”.

Our preparations for Camino 2026 are nearing completion as we approach our departure for Spain on May 24th.