Day 3 Roncesvalles to Zubiri

Today was my first over 20km day. Zubiri was the stop and it was a 22.5km stage. After the climb on Day 2, today was considerably lower and easier.

The monastery at Roncesvalles has a rule to wake everyone up at 6am (with church hymns nonetheless) and everyone must be out the door by 8am. A group of people that I walked with on the previous day got ready really quickly in the chaos of fighting for bathroom and coffee machine at 7am and started walking. I was still in a daze and I started walking at 7.30am. I eventually caught up with them 30 minutes down the road. The group eventually broke into 2 groups due to different pace. Lina the Danish girl and Rebecca the German girl was walking way faster than me and Gina and Richard so the 3 of us formed our own little group.

The weather cannot have been more perfect. It was very cold in the morning with me needing beanie and glove until about 11am when it warms up. We took 2 breaks along the way and arrived at Zubiri at 2pm.

Gina said she prefer the cheapest accommodation so we went to the municipal alberque which was next to a school. It was clean and basic. Really basic!! By now I have worked out that it takes me an hour to walk 3 to 3.5km in good weather and I have a routine upon arrival at the alberque now. Sign in. Get pilgrim passport stamped. Unpack. Shower. Wash socks and jocks and then massage feet and eat. Then it's exploring the town to buy food for the next day

Even though the stage was quite flat. Walking for more than 6 hours a day is still a vey tiring job. The last 3.5km was the toughest as fatigue really sets in. It's basically head down and march to town for the 3 of us. We were all really tired and went to have the pilgrim dinner at 5pm so we can sleep early

The dorm for today has 24 beds so it was near impossible to sleep without putting ear plugs and eye mask on. I eventually slept at 9pm but woke up at 12am to use the bathroom. The bathroom was outside in a different building and it was freezing. By the time I walked there and back I was wide awake. It was also very cold in the not heated dorm so I had to wear my down jacket to sleep. I used the bathroom again at 330am and saw 2 pilgrim packing and setting off already! It was again hard to immediately fall back to sleep and when lights came on at 6am I was a zombie. I probably had 4 hours sleep and was super tired.

Next stop after today is Pamplona which was 22km away