Day 3: onwards to Cizar Menor (and then back again)

Day started well when everyone was up on time and mystery bread man visited the village for 5 minutes. Starved villagers and pilgrims mobbed his little van. Lynda fought for some bread and cheese which meant happy Buckley pilgrims staggered off to begin the day´s walk.

Muscle aching was getting beyond a joke, in addition to which Sally had contracted a v large blister. Hot debates as to best way to deal with it - let me just say, I am still in great pain and have a heel the size of a golfball. Anyway, carried on, stopping only for nutricious lunch of chocolate and nuts as next town was 12 km away. Buckley pilgrims decided to start copying the Germans and buy food in the mornings.

Reached Pamplona in the afternoon - very beautiful city. Tried to get into the cathedral, but it was closed. Made our weary way to a large traditional cafe in the square where Hemmingway wrote... a book. V nice beer, followed by lunch in local restaurant, where minestrone soup means major vegetable hit. And Sally, Stephen and John ate some meat from a highly questionnable part of a pig. Pat enjoyed delicious minced cod - she has lived to regret it.

From this point on, the pilgrims foolishly separated. Sally and John stayed behind to buy complete new set of gear, including boots, for Sally as somehow she had come slightly unprepared. Lynda, Pat and Stephen trudged on to Cizar Menor. However, on their arrival at the refugio, they were met by a slightly mad woman who insisted she only had 4 beds, whilst 100´s of other pilgrims trooped in. They were shown to what can only be described as the black hole of Calcutta where Lynda had a slight sense of humour failure and they all decamped back to Pamplona by taxi.

They met up with John and Sally who had booked a lovely refugio in an old monastery in the centre of Pamplona. John v happy because he got to go to his first proper mass on the pilgrimage but quite shockingly, Pat did not make it to church. She has consistently missed every evening with us - she blames tiredness, we are starting to think she is just sick of us.

Then a quick meal back in the square, where John and Lynda enjoyed a gin and tonic in a pint glass where there was more gin than tonic. They slept well. Stephen did not. Their drunken snores kept him awake all night and he was not v amused in the morning.