Camino de Santiago Day 3: Zubiri to Pamplona
We reach the first 'checkpoint' today: the city of Pamplona. The pilgrims are easily identifiable but it's a change of pace being surrounded by crowds - the city is alive; its energy is intoxicating
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Cities are for drinking in.
Drinking in and imbibing the atmosphere and energy of a thing that is a both living organism in itself, and alive with the people who inhabit it, create it, sustain it and are nourished by it.
To walk through a city that is truly alive, and one which facilitates the lives of the people within it in how they spend their days, is to be nourished by the same living energy that feeds those who do live there,
Even though we’re just passing through.
But everyone is passing through Pamplona today – local and pilgrim alike.
I put on my flip-flops and walk across the city-centre, in search of nothing in particular, which I find as I navigate the dark cobbled streets, creeping with light and life, too narrow for cars to bother mostly, the sun always casting light from around a corner at the end of a long street, every corner bursting with promise of what lies around it, leading you along in a different way to the one I’d become accustomed to in previous days, each street flanked with high tables and chairs outside bars and cafes that facilitate standing, if one likes; the people embody a wonderful paradox where many choose to stand while they eat and drink, and people come and go with an airy breeze; but it is not that they are rushing off to do some other business or meet someone more important, it is more that everyone, well-dressed as they are, seem to be carried on the wind of their whims, allowing themselves to be swept from informal social gathering to informal social gathering, sharing themselves freely, dedicating enough time to friends and strangers, before floating along to do the same again, elsewhere.
Ancient city walls, gated doorways, clean stone building fronts, postered shutters and patio furniture; balconies are for rebel flags, for hanging washing, for smoking and for observing life below without interfering with it – but vitally part of it nonetheless.
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I’m revitalised by the energy of seeing people busy – not with business but in giving themselves to the city and the world, to friends and strangers, spending freely: their money on food and wine and bread and seafood and pickled things; and their time with others.
The stimulation of all of these non-pilgrims is too much for me, it incapacitates me – whereas I know so much about my fellow pilgrim on the way simply by the fact that they’re here – I know how they spend their days, for now, and that they’re walking somewhere with a purpose – facts which reveal so much;
In the city though these lives walk by me and I know nothing about them, their existences burst with possibilities, too much for me to comprehend, though I’m invigorated by the potential energy of them all.
I just sit and watch.
It’s easy to identify the familiar gait of my fellow peregrino bobbing through the city, even before I spot the scallop shell on their backpack. But for now I feel at home being sucked into the mass of people and life that is the city itself, and feel at home lost in the crowds.
And, of course, cities are for drinking in:
A beer here a pintxo there, watching what looks like the whole world coming to this small plaza or a corner of the city. People come and go and meet and drink and leave and bump into one another – fancy meeting you here, right now, on a Sunday afternoon, old friend.
A coffee and written words in the late afternoon as the place clears, people gather and regroup and the deck gets reshuffled before night-time:
Streetlights lead the way to busy lanes, some whiskey or red wine, a local martini with some olives and crab on the side –
one and one, a sociable drink coupled with a bite of food, and new friends young and old; then across the city and onto the next;
A moveable feast,
A late-night beer; an even later glass of patxaran – a sweet absinth-ine local delight – before returning to bed by the cathedral, with a code for the door, no curfew in the city – a place that lives and breathes and is always open – here for us all to drink in.
If you’ve done the Camino, are thinking of doing it, or are just interested in discussing the Camino or travel in general - then please leave a comment. I’d love to hear from you.