Day 3: Zubiri, and BLISTERS

Concrete stepping stones across a stream, in a beech forest near Zubiri

 My Mom asked what time pilgrims wake.  My grandma asked if I'd still be able to sleep in til noon.  Well, I'd heard horror stories of the early risers on the Camino, waking and walking before dawn.  (I thought: I'll never wake before dawn.)  The first hostel, in St. Jean in France, made me think it might not be so bad.  The owner actually told us - in no uncertain terms, in multiple languages - that we were not to wake up before 7 am under any circumstances, because the poor villagers of St. Jean were sick and tired of pilgrims wandering around when the town was still asleep ('before dawn', she said, 'is the nighttime!')  However, this morning, waking up at the second hostel in Roncesvalles was an entirely different story.  There were signs posted everywhere saying we must be cleared out by 8 am... and since this was a 182-bedder, I imagine they need time to clean.  Also, since everyone was exhausted and crawling into bed immediately after the welcome mass finished at 9 pm, I guess that is technically enough sleep.  I, however, found a whole room of books to choose from (probably left behind by other hikers who decided after the first day that books are too heavy), so instead of going to bed early I stayed up reading a battered copy of Game of Thrones.  The German man in the bunk beside me cheerfully commented that this must be an arm workout, as I held it up to read by headlamp.  He was soon snoring away.

I set my alarm for 7:15, thinking I'd push the snooze.  Then, lo and behold, at 6:15 am the hostelers came in a red-shirted parade through every single dormitory, playing guitars and singing a good morning wake-up song.  (No joke.  They were all volunteers from the Netherlands, the whole staff; at 6:15 am they were quite cheerful.)  Their song was not particularly complex, though it had a lovely melody - 'Good morning, good morning, good morning to you, time to wake up, el camino is waiting for you... good morning, and god bless you...'

I got up.  On the road with a steaming coffee cup (filled with more instant coffee, from the hostel kitchen sink) by 7:30.  Perhaps this is good training for me; perhaps I'll maintain this schedule when I get home.  As we traipsed away, all 182 of us, we crossed through 3 km of old, old oak forests that ended with a cross on the trail, and a sign saying this particular forest in the Basque region of Spain - close to the border of France, and directly south of Roncesvalles - was known for magic in medieval times, and the site of at least one witch burning.  Quite eerie and ethereal, in the pre-dawn light, with frost all around us still silvering the grass. 

Anyway.  Today was farmland, with cows and sheep and a whole field full of pregnant mares and their foals, and even the horses wearing bells around their necks:

(One horse watched the pilgrim ahead of me pass on the road). 

Then, what was supposedly the last of the old beech forests, as we headed south.  Beech trees are beautiful!  Gnarled and huge-trunked with vivid waxy leaves, and moss on all their trunks. 
 

Their size totally does not come across in that picture, but moss on their pale bark was just lovely, and also very clearly growing more on the north side of the trunks, just like in old foresters' tales.  And the sunlight.  Oh the sunlight!  Perhaps it wasjust because we started so early, with frost chilling our hands, our breath misting as we waited for the sun to rise.  But by 10 am, when most of us had been walking for hours, the sun filtering through the trees felt particularly golden and warm, and the trail like this otherworldly fantasy trek through an ethereal forest (perhaps it was just the signs speaking of magic earlier, planting thoughts in our heads? This forest felt like magic).  On the coldest mornings, I think, the sunlight feels warmer. 

In one town, a picturesque but somewhat questionable-looking water source was labeled as 'potable-good to drink...;' but I refrained from filling my water bottle, due to the large quantities of moss:

(The potable water is that little trickle emerging from the moss.) 
 
Through more beech forests, and more beech forests, 20 km onward to the little town of Zubiri.  Leaving by 7:30 am did mean I got here by 1:30, which was quite nice.  My bunk is above a Ukrainian lady's, and beside a Spanish lady's, and I joined them both in washing and hanging up clothes on the communal lines, before they fill up with other pilgrims' clothes:

I love the communal living.  I'm sure there are tons of other pilgrims staying in fancy hotels and having their luggage mailed ahead each day, but the travelers staying in these cheaper albergues are all prowling for grocery stores, and walking with apples and cheap baguettes sticking out of their backpacks, and handwashing clothes in the bathroom sinks. All the rustling in the bunk rooms at night makes me feel like one bird in a flock of birds, or one horse in a herd of horses, safe and anonymous and tuned to some shared rhythm.  Also, the bunks are quite close.  On the closeness of the bunks: last night in Roncesvalles, the bunk beds were organized in pairs, so both top and bottom bunks were so near to their neighbors as to be practically double beds.  I slept beside a retired German man with glasses, who cordially said good night, and then - when I stopped reading Game of Thrones long enough to smile and ask where he was from - told me all about the smallest German county beside Luxembourg and France, with a population of only 1 million, and a name that starts with a C which I've now forgotten (though he said it was a tiny county compared to Badem-Wurtemburg).  He also told me Germans go to Montana to buy Quarter Horses, and then ship them all the way back to Germany across the sea!

In other news, I have two blisters, one on each foot.  I was wearing multiple socks, but no good - blisters anyway.  With luck they won't last long, though in my experience that's never been the case with blisters.  They tend to last for weeks, the miserable companions.

I've been typing this in the heat of the day, from 2 - 3 pm in Zubiri (in that small building to the left of the clotheslines - the kitchen, with surprisingly strong WIFI).  Now off to explore the old stone buildings and sit by the river bridge, and undertake the first day of an experiment: whether I can learn to write in the afternoons instead of the mornings, because it looks like I'll be walking in the mornings. 
 

Buen camino.
 

-mlj