Startpoint: Zubiri; Endpoint: Pamplona; Steps taken: 99,999 (I don’t actually know how many we took today, as my pedometer only goes to 99,999 – I’ll reset it tomorrow); distance travelled: 23km today (about 72 km in total); conditions: quite good actually.

Well, this is nice. We left Zubiri at 8am and made it to Pamplona by 1.15pm and checked into a hotel (that’s not a typo, we checked into a hotel, not a hostel!). Since then we’ve been sampling the local tapas and beers and all have been most satisfactory.

Unfortunately, the hotel does not have rooms with baths, so no hot bath for dad today. Apparently baths are no longer fashionable in hotels in Spain – at least that’s what our concierge told us. Baths are out of fashion – be warned!

Three days of hostel living has also made us a little thrifty. We baulked at the price of laundry (€1.20 for a pair of socks!) and decided instead to wash everything in the sink in the bathroom. When we left to find dinner, we turned the heater on full blast and turned the airconditioning to 32 degrees, as high as it would go. We checked in a little while ago, and the room feels as hot as a pizza oven. The clothes are all just as wet as they were before, but now slightly warmer. As I sit in the hotel lobby writing this blog on the phone, my dad is upstairs running each sock under the hairdryer. We have 8 hours or more before hitting the road, so he should get it all done before breakfast.

We didn’t see as many people at all today. A lot of the walk there was nobody to be seen either in front or behind us. I think there were three reasons: 1) the relative lack of hills meant everyone could keep to a fairly steady pace (it’s the hills that really test you); 2) Pamplona is so large that everyone sleeps and eats indifferent places and 3) we left about half an hour after everyone else and never caught up.

During our lunch tapas at Cafe Iruna this afternoon, I lost a €5 bet to my father. He was commenting on the sometimes wild gesticulating and extravagant hand gestures of one of our fellow diners. She’d take her sunglasses off and put them back on again about every thirty seconds (no exaggeration). I bet my father that she wasn’t even Spanish (given the majority of the world population isn’t Spanish, I figured I was in with a chance). I lost. After that I commented on the chubbiness of the sparrows picking crumbs from around our table. I was trying to goad him into another bet so I could win my money back. It didn’t work.

We saw a lot of cyclists during our walk today, but given the condition of the paths and the hills, I think cycling the Camino is probably worse than walking it. One guy has a basket on the front of his bike and a trailer on the back. He’s travelling with his little dog. On the uphills, the dog walks himself; on the downhills, the dog rides in the basket. Seems fair.

We saw one of the locations from The Way today – the little hotel/hostel where Martin Sheen meets the grumpy smoking Canadian. The place was really lovely – I kinda wish we had stayed there. But any Canadians we met have been very friendly non-smokers. My Dad told me that one Canadian walker had told Dad he was from Saskatchewan. My Dad got his Canadian geography briefly confused and responded by happily telling the Canadian that he always found that the very nicest Canadians come from the far west. This guy agreed that they probably did. It was only later my Dad realised that Saskatchewan is not in the west.

Tomorrow we’re back to small towns, hostels and multi-bed dorms, so tonight is the only time I’ll know for sure who is snoring in the middle of the night. It’s the little things….