Ground is shaking, bulls are coming!

Once upon a time, two tired pilgrims climbed down the Pyrenees and in just a few days greeted hundreds of cows. They did not seem to understand the standard “Moo” and did not pay us any attention. We came up with a modified greeting “Muguuuuur”, which sounded more Basque. It kind of worked, the cows stopped chewing and curiously stared.

There is one place in the Basque country where you do your best not to catch any cow’s attention. For a week in July every year the historic part of Pamplona turns into a bull race ring. The craziest people run with bulls in narrow streets and celebrate their survival like there is no tomorrow.

We decided to take a one-day break to explore Pamplona. The very first thing we did in the morning is sending some items home by post. The official Camino webpage said that albergues require lunch boxes, latex gloves and trash bags. We never used any of these! Our albergue was basically a few hundred years old church and we slept in one room with around 20 people. Pilgrims are all strange in their own way. Finding friends is very easy, people with a similar level of strangeness attract each other. For example, a young Italian girl Stella came walking from Lourdes, France. Her feet were destroyed, but she never stopped smiling. Her favorite thing was to sing random pop songs and follow someone on the way to the bathroom.

Falling asleep was not easy. A group of annoying Spanish people spent hours talking for the sake of talking. There was a brutal snorer on the top floor above me. Earplugs and the last 25 km of walking eventually helped – I dived into a deep sleep. Juan woke me up in the middle of the night. I was awake, Juan stopped shaking me, but the ground didn’t!

I replied in a grumpy voice: “I know, I lived in Japan.” and went back to sleep. Juan was terrified – we were all under a stone roof not built to withstand earthquakes. I had no idea there were earthquakes in Spain.

There were no signs of previous night shaking in the town. No wonder, the bulls must create an earthquake every year. And the town’s still standing! Our task for the day was to collect as many stamps as possible. The stamps are given on pilgrims’ passports at albergues, restaurants, tourist offices or churches. Like a moth to the flame, PhDs are attracted to universities. There we obtained my favorite stamp of all. Local planetarium had a periodic table outside, made of concrete cubes.

It got even better, trust me. What happens if you combine science+art+FOOD? Kitchens turn into chemistry labs, experts decorate the restaurants with Michelin stars. The signature Basque food are pintxos – small pieces of bread with ham, cheese, vegetables. The pintxos that we ate looked like “too much work for such a small piece of food”. For example, a pintxo in a shape of a bird’s nest had 16 ingredients. All of them tasted new, fresh and strong.

For the first time on the Camino we discovered a grandma-style restaurant aka. food heaven. Camino is the healthiest food tour in the world. You can eat whatever you want and you will even lose weight! Just keep walking to the next restaurant. Juan checked his GPS watch at the end of the day: we somehow managed to walk 22 km on a rest day.