Pamplona → Cirauqui
Distance: 20.01 miles / 32.2km
Elevation: +2169 ft, -2178ft
I woke up today around 6am - I’ve been waking up pretty consistently before my alarm which doesn’t typically happen at home! I’ve adjusted well to the Camino schedule of waking up around 6am and getting to bed around 10pm.
I packed up all my things and then had breakfast at the hostel, which was toast with jam, orange juice, and coffee. I also had some digestifs (sweet crackers). I left for the day around 7:15am. I ran into a group of familiar faces and spent some time walking with them. As we headed out of Pamplona, we transitioned from busy city pavement to rural gravel paths.
It was a beautiful morning with some light sprinkles and a slightly overcast morning. I spent the majority of today walking with a British woman named Becca who’s a doctor in England. We walked for about 9 miles before stopping for a snack and a break at a cafe. I had an orange juice and she had a coffee and a tortilla (omelette with bacon). After that, we set off and walked another ~5 miles into Puente la Reina.
This town is the recommended stop for the day according to guidebooks and where most people schedule their days. I had decided that I wanted to spend some time spending the night off of the recommended stages to see some of the smaller villages and get more of a local vibe. I planned to walk 2 villages past Puente la Reina into Cirauqui to spend the night.
When walking into Puente la Reina, I was having some knee pain in my right leg and I had walked about 15 miles so far with a good amount of elevation change so I knew it was time for a break. I ran into some friends at a pandaneria (bakery) where I stopped and had a pain au chocolate and chatted with them for a bit.
There, I found out that a girl I had met previously, Julie from New York City, was also planning on walking to Cirauqui today. After I finished my pastry and my rest, I started my walk toward Cirauqui which was about 5 miles past where I had rested. The last 5 miles had a few steep uphill sections which were a struggle when I had already walked a long day and was tired.
Julie caught up with me and so we walked together. It was really nice to have someone to talk with during this last tiring section. We passed blackberry bushes where we stopped and picked blackberries for snacks, as well as passing a grape vineyard heading into Cirauqui where we sampled some grapes too. Finally, at around 4pm, we made it to Cirauqui.
There was a fairly steep hill into town and the whole village is built on an incline (of course) so even after arriving, we had to climb up some very steep hills to find our Albergue (hostel).
Finally, we arrived after 20 miles of walking and got shown to our beds. I showered, did my laundry, hung it to dry, and spent some time stretching and rolling my feet out. There were a number of familiar faces that rolled in an hour or two after me and it was nice to see that some people I knew also made it here tonight.
At 7pm, we had the community dinner where a group of us had dinner together in an old wine cellar in the hostel. Dinner was red wine, bread, a salad with apple & walnuts and vinaigrette dressing, chickpea and mushroom stew (which was soooo delicious), and a custard for dessert.
I got to chat with many people at dinner and it was so great to get to know so many people and their stories about why they’re doing the Camino. One story that was particularly touching was a man named Mark who is American but had spent the past six years living in Budapest, Hungary.
He worked in humanitarian aid for his whole career and was brought to Budapest for work where he supported people in North Africa and the Middle East. However, after Trump took office and gutted USAID, his entire office in Budapest got raided by DOGE and shut down. Along with his job went his work visa, his place to live, and his life that he had built in Budapest the past six years. He was hiking the Camino to figure out not only what his next career move is (since his entire industry now didn’t exist), but also where he would live and what his life would look like.
It’s fascinating to meet people like that and to see how impacted even people abroad can be by decisions made in the United States. After dinner, I checked on my laundry, which was dry, and then got ready for bed. I am still experiencing some knee pain when walking which makes me a little nervous. I’m hopeful it is just my body adjusting to the change in activity levels and will dissipate in the next few days.
Tomorrow, I've planned a somewhat shorter day to recover from the distance and elevation from today. I plan to go 15 miles to Villamayor de Monjardin, which involves a route still with elevation, but it ascend and descends the same 200 meter range without too many steep elevation changes. After the long day, I was pretty tired and ready to go to sleep once I got into bed.
