Greetings from Pamplona…home of the famed San Fermin Festival…and the running of the bulls.  We arrived this afternoon after our first full day of no rain and sunshine since we left Rome on Tuesday.  It was a welcome change…and the additional Vitamin D powered us through another 24 kilometers (15 miles) of walking up and down muddy trails.  The absence of rain gear and the relative flatness of the terrain today (only 1200 feet of elevation gain) made us realize how challenging Days 1 and 2 were.  We arrived early enough to have dinner (at the same location where Martin Sheen’s character dined on pinchos in the film “The Way”) and attend church at the Cathedral Santa Maria.  On the way home tonight the streets were packed with families (adults and kids) eating, drinking and socializing.  We thought it might be a special holiday….but the hotel staff said no, this is a typical Saturday evening when the weather is good.  We should have known…as our good friends from Spain, Yayo and Pilar and their family are always “in the streets” for community socializing in their town of San Fernando.  The positive energy of these multi-generational “communities” is really contagious.

Another welcome change over the last 24 hours was the sudden emergence of fellow pilgrims.  We were beginning to think we were either in the wrong place or we offended someone in the Spanish Bureau of Tourism.   The high season for walking the Camino is summer…so we didn’t expect crowds in early spring… but on Thursday night in Roncesvalles…we had dinner at the main restaurant in the village…and we saw only 2 other pilgrims.

(I took this picture of the empty dining room for evidence as I was convinced we had walked into the Spanish version of the hotel in “The Shining”.  Aqui esta Johnny!)  Last night and today, we ran into at least 30 pilgrims from places like Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand, Australia, Germany and shared a table with a retired couple from the UK.

When we entered into the walled city center of Pamplona through the French Arch and drawbridge, we saw a young bride and groom (see 1/4 photo above).  The groom wore a red tie/white shirt.  It reminded me of the traditional Basque red & white worn for the running of the bulls in July.   It reminded me of Ernest Hemingway….who attended the San Fermin festival often and set his first novel “The Sun Also Rises” in Pamplona.

I struggled to read Hemingway.  I was young and the prose was sparse and difficult.  I was told the brevity had power.  I did not see it.  I could not see it.  I could not.  I tried.  Yes.  Then sentences would expand and grow and continue on for so long with many clauses and connections simply by using the word “and” to link one thing to the next that I would lose track of the links and I could see the depression in my face and the disappointment in the eyes of professors and friends who did not realize I was reading Hemingway and only saw the anger I could not hide as the deadline for a paper would loom and cause me to want nothing more than to end his sentences for him or at least add an adverb.  It was 40 years ago.  I have been to Pamplona.  I will read Hemingway.   Again.