St. Jean Pied de Port, Day 6

Phew, what a long travel day it was! We spent the majority of the day on plane or bus and discovered that there are two types of stenches: the stench of being outside and hiking without showering, and the stench of sitting in closed areas with little circulation all day. After today I think the latter of those two is worse. We woke up at 2am, to ensure that we would get to the airport in time for our 6am flight. Turns out no one else needs a Taxi at that hour (who knew?), and we were at the airport in approximately 20 minutes. Once arriving, we walked into a deserted airport and discovered that the airline desks don’t open until 2 hours before the flight, thus found ourselves with some more time on our hands. Traveling is tricky because you don’t want to miss your flight/bus/train, yet without knowing the area or procedures of the area well, I often found myself in the “hurry up and wait” mode.

Once in Pamplona, after a crazy sprint through the Frankfurt airport, we got a taxi to the Pamplona bus station. While we waited, we observed many other pilgrims (what they call people who walk the Camino) strolling in and it started to make the trip seem very real to us.

We caught our bus to St. Jean Pied de Port, and arrived by around 4:30pm. This next part was probably my least favorite of the trip so far. Everyone gets off the buses and sprints to try and find a hostel before they fill up. It sort of feels like everyone is on edge and in competition with one another, not two traits that are typically used to describe El Camino. You feel worried about what might happen if you can’t find a bed. In the end, all worked out and we found ourselves in a great hostel! The most friendly of the other four in our room was a German man, who was very nice, however he didn’t speak too much English. We went out for some dinner and forced ourselves to stay up all the way until 8pm.