September 18th-19th, Arriving in Pamplona and the first day’s walk to Puente la Reina (23 kilometers):

Leaving the USA feels almost too easy – as I’ve gotten older I’ve gotten better at traveling, and it feels good to only have a backpack that doesn’t need to be checked at luggage.  There is a part of my brain that understands I’ll land in a foreign country with no return flight for 5 weeks, with a barely passable knowledge of the language, with no one I know within thousands of miles.  The part of my brain that knows this is also choosing to trust in God to give me strength and joy on the journey, to lean into the discomfort and accept whatever is coming.  

Let’s skip ahead.  After the redeye flight, I land in Madrid to catch my connecting flight to Pamplona only to find out that the flight has been cancelled.  Despite my sleep deprivation and the language barrier between myself and the friendly guy at Iberia’s help desk, I don’t panic – and he puts me on standby for an earlier flight, which gets me into Pamplona a full 2 hours earlier than expected.  I hop a cab and ask to go to the Oficina de Turismo.  He speaks to me in rapid Spanish, and I don’t understand at all.  He keeps using a phrase that I’ve never heard before, but will come to know and love ‘Vale’, which I find out later means ‘Ok’.  I am confused. 

What I work out later is that he is trying to tell me that the Tourist Office I want to go to is closed, but he will happily take me to another that isn’t.  I don’t follow, but agree anyway and am soon dropped off in front of a building somewhere in Pamplona several kilometers away from the Camino, the albergue, or any landmarks I might immediately recognize.  

This Tourist Office is also closed, because my early flight has gotten me to Pamplona smack dab in the middle of the afternoon siesta.  

Bleary-eyed with a lack of sleep, I wander around for a few blocks before happening on the famous bull statue, which I can then locate in my guidebook and get a bearing that will lead me to the Camino, and from there the hostel where I want to stay, I hope.

Passing through the city, through a central square in front of the Café Iruna made famous by Hemingway and one of many tiny tourist shops where I buy my pilgrim’s shell and strap it to my backpack, I eventually find not only my first sight of the Camino’s ubiquitous scallop shell signs but also the yellow arrows pointing the way as well as my hostel, Jesus y Maria, in a converted chapel.  I throw down my euros, get the first stamp on my credencial, find my top bunk close to the co-ed bathrooms, and unroll my sleeping bag.  It’s midafternoon when I lay down with the intention of doing an examen; it’s nearly night when I wake up ravenous and confused.  

Walking around the squares of the city, Pamplona feels on first impression much like Asheville – large, but welcoming; busy but quiet somehow.  I’m amazed by how many pilgrims there are, fresh with energy and the excitement of beginning the journey – even as I fight not to compare myself to them: who is better geared out, who looks the most fit, who seems most at ease.  I know that the pilgrimage will be a test of my resources and ability to throw myself into a totally alien environment and thrive, that I will have to choose between the part of me that is resilient and daring and the part of me that wants comfort and familiarity.  It’s a Bilbo Baggins kind of day.

Note about satellite watches: if you are in between time zones, 7AM will quickly become 6AM.  This is what happens to me, and will continue to happen for almost a week – which means I am up, packed, and moving before the rush of the other pilgrims, but somewhat confused when I’ve been walking through the city, following yellow arrows down streets and through parks, past the university, and out toward the suburbs, before the sun ever rises.  Thankfully the café across the street from my hostel is open early and feeds me with café con leche, a chocolate croissant, orange juice, and toast (little do I know, this is the Standard Pilgrim Breakfast Everywhere in Spain).  There is Pink Floyd playing on the radio, and I am off. 

The camino takes me through the old city and toward the university, then out along the highway and into the suburbs and up a hill to a town called Cizur Menor where I break for coffee and a snack… as well as my first roadside stamp for the credencial.  Despite everything, I navigate the order and payment with the bartender swimmingly (smiling helps).  From the outside seating I can see the mountains in the distance that lead up to the Alto de Perdon monument, where my intention is to stop and pray a rosary for protection and strength along the Way.  It looks very far away, and ominously covered in clouds.  

There are plenty of pilgrims wandering into the café, but I don’t do much more than smile at them and say ‘Buen Camino’.  I see a pair of women inside who, let’s face it, look blatantly British who smile back.  Note – I will run into them again.  Foreshadowing.  

Sitting at this café in a foreign town, I am ridiculously grateful for the cup of coffee and a quiet, peaceful place to sit.  Back home, coffee is a HUGE part of my life, something that is not only taken for granted but so much a part of my routine I rarely think about it at all.  But today, I’m able to sit quietly and appreciate the coffee from start to finish without being distracted by the myriad other things that ‘need attention’ – a cell phone, a laptop, headphones, a checklist.  I’m just drinking coffee at a café in Spain, in love with life.

I spend the rest of the day walking fast and hard up the mountain toward the Alto de Perdon in anticipation… and when I get there, it is so damn windy and cold that I snap two photos and take off down the mountain toward Puente la Reina like a bat out of hell.  

I do stop to eat and air my feet in a nice sunny spot, and I feel confident and ‘in my element’ to be outside in the open air with naught but a backpack… until I grab a handful of peanuts with fingers already dusty with Gold Bond.  Then I feel like a dumbass, but it’s pretty funny regardless.  A strange Australian woman offers me blackberries along the side of the road: More Foreshadowing!  I see the first of many giant windmills along the ridgelines, as well as the first cross monument to a deceased peregrino, which makes me pause and pray.  Massive mountains in the distance that are suspiciously in between me and the horizon.  Giant trees that look like something out of Gladiator.  Signs I am no longer in Kansas, everywhere.

And, inevitably, I reach the Albergue Jakue in Puente la Reina midafternoon, throw down my 8 shiny Euros for a bed, and sort my stuff.  I’ve got a top bunk over a boisterous and gentle man from Brazil named Paulo, whose laugh is quick and booming, and whom I will continue to see for weeks and who will laugh with, at, and for me despite our complete inability to communicate between my terrible Spanish and his Portuguese.  When I go to check my email on the common computer, I meet an older woman (Kathy from Canada who says she is a bestselling author of erotic poetry and children’s books) who invites me to share their dinner.  It’s a basic pasta meal with several other English speakers, all older, all of whom are struggling to adapt to the physical demands of the Camino with good humor.  It’s also here that I meet Bearded Red Ryan, also from Canada, who will quickly become a fixture along the trail with his father, Bald Ralph.  

Settling into the bunk that night, I am facing another top bunk and a German woman, Martina, with whom I keep cracking up whenever some mystery pilgrim keeps turning the lights on and off.  It’s a moment shared beyond language that allows me to understand what a different community I’ve fallen into here in Spain.  More on that later.