Day 3 Roncesvalles to Zubrini

I’ll start with the good. Last night Pilgrims mass was amazing. It was in Spanish but I could follow along pretty well. The Priest was so sweet. He talked about how he holds all the peregrinos (pilgrims) in his heart. And that God walks with us. I love the chanting in a Catholic service. It was so beautiful to hear those around me singing in this old church with great acoustics. And of course I wasn’t allowed to take communion, but I received a blessing and it was special.

This morning was a bit of a rough start. I didn’t sleep well at all so wanted to sleep til 7:30 but the monastery started playing Gregorian chanting over the speakers at 6 am. Again-beautiful music, but not at 6am! So I laid there for 30 min while the other 30 people in my room got up, packed their bags and talked loudly. I finally got out of bed at 7 and slowly packed up. As I was leaving I asked the volunteers where I could mail something. They told me and I began to walk to a separate building for breakfast. The man shouted out to me – you better hurry, breakfast ends in 5 minutes! Great. So I began rushing off with all my gear. And then the man shouted- what about your hiking boots?! I still had my slides on and my boots were in the boot closet. So I rushed back got my boots on and made it to breakfast with one minute to spare. The waitress was not very happy with me but fortunately I was not the only one. I sat with 3 other women who were taking their time as well, and we had lovely conversation.

So it was a bit of unorganized start. But the day was beautiful and I was looking forward to a long hike. We are still in the Pyrenees but lower down so the scenery was different but still beautiful. I walked though thick forest for a lot of the day. Some walking along gravel farm roads, and through a few small towns. It was up and down often but mostly flat ish.

I stopped about 4 miles in at a lovely cafe for avocado toast with a generous amount of olive oil on it as well as pomegranate seeds. Sounds strange but it was delicious!

I walked alone all day on purpose but I was never far from others. There were about 12 people either in front of me or behind me all along the way. We would pass each other back and forth as one stopped to take a break and others kept going. So I never felt completely alone. But the head space was nice. I prayed a lot today. I asked God to place upon my heart any names that needed it. God gave me a few. And I prayed my list of folks I committed to as well as some good Thomas Keating prayers. I talked to cows and horses and birds. I played in rivers and streams. It was lovely. But the day began to drag on. It was 16 miles and hotter than it has been. It took me 7 hours today. So I am pooped. I paid a little extra to get a room by myself tonight with the hopes of getting a good nights sleep. Also I’m staying right by a river so I can listen to the water trickle all night! My favorite!

I’m about to shower and find some dinner and a super mercardo.

Almost forgot-I mailed 2.5 lbs worth of stuff I didn’t need to myself in Santiago. This is a common thing to do. Many people arrive with too much stuff, too heavy of a backpack, so they mail stuff to the end to pick up when they finish. Getting rid of those extra pounds helped today.

If you want to see pics follow me on fb. They aren’t loading well to this site. But the story telling will remain here. And I’m making short videos for fb and Tik tok as well. I want to tell the story and take you all along with me so I’m trying to simplify a bit. Story here. Pics on fb. Videos on tik tok and fb. Love you all.

Buen Camino!