Boog's Blog

Monday 25 September

Walk with the crossing if a “Hill”.  Altura de Perdón.

Distances again:

iPhone 24 km

Android, in same vest 26.9

Garmin 26.7

Book 25.5

Terrain:. walk starts downhill to Visit Menor and then wends its way uphill to the top of  Altura de Perdón, 770 meters.

On the way we passed a lovely 13th century church, Parroquia San Andrés.  Lovely polychrome.

At the top of the pass it was, of course, very windy.  40 large windmills have been installed. QB pictured for scale.

Artwork for the Camino, well known and photographed at the top.

The top of the pass is also the demarcation line between the Pamplona Valley and the next.  Got much warmer as we started the very steep and rocky descent.  About 45 minutes of this:

After these “bits” the road surface and grade became enjoyable again.  Stopped for salad bite in Utrega before finishing just before the bridge in Puente de Reina.

No wildlife sightings today; we missed seeing the almond trees for the dirt of the road.

Buffet dinner with six others walking the way.  Tend to meet up at odd and unplanned times. Not great food but ok with ample quantities for hungry wanderers.

Sunday 24 September

Rest day, needed.  Laundry, Cathedral, wandering.

Breakfast was a different type of buffet:served one.  Different and with smoked salmon.  I got QB’s portion.

Individual olive oil in capillary ambules

Yesterday we mentioned a festival. Elizabeth asked if there were giant heads. I erroneously said no.  Well, it was the festival of San Fermín, well described online. Had the official one in July and it was so successful that they scheduled another for now. Yes, giants.

Laundry and cathedral were mentioned in the preamble.  Laundry done.  Cathedral and wantdering not so much.

Went over to visit the cathedral, no wandering due to enormous city crowds too thick to push through. As to the cathedral…it was closed.  Yes, closed.  First time the we have seen one closed.  Others were there to worship but they were SOL.

Saturday 23 September. Cool,perfect start, too hot and sunny later.

Keeping, for a few days with the test of distance devices:

book- 23.8 km

Garmin 25.62

iPhone- 22.7

Android 23.0

Pretty good concordence today.  As a side testing note I carried both the Android and iPhone in my pocket today.

Better terrain today.

Mostly good walking on decent paths. Some exceptions. Above not an exception.

Lovely spider Weds in photo. May have to zoom.

An interesting sight along a path: horses eating bread that a farmer delivered. Bread, probably day old, laid out across a field.

A little further on geese honking and looking for food from QB.

Stopped at a small abby and found a typical good story. Person, pictured, bought some land and as part of the land was an abandoned church, 12th century, looted almost to the bare bones in 2009.  He decided to restore it.  Naturally found interesting art works behind the walls, etc.

I asked him if the church was deconsecrated? Well, that is a complicated matter.  The local priest will not talk to him, even after 4 years and will not approve it.  He spoke with the Archbishop who worked around the priest to get it declared a ruin.   It is not resolved and may never be.

Stopped for Pinxos in Villova, a medieval city(1184) with an old old bridge.

After crossing another, similar looking bridge of great importance, also 12th century, the Magdalena bridge we entered Pamplona again.

Right in the midst of a semi-religious festival! Like Times square in it’s heyday.

First pic is evening view from our balcony.

Friday 21 September – a Rain say

Day started with significant thunder, lightening and rain which tapered off early afternoon.  Left some roads very slippery.

Early start from Hotel Roncesvalles

QB in very pretty Basque town

The last 4km were especially steep and slippery; a dangerous descent on tired legs. The balance of the terrain and walls were excellent to outstanding.  Fine road services, views.and terrains.

Speaks for itself. 

One of the fine views, not looking real.

So far, and very unlike our previous caminos, the predominant language has been English. Canadians, Americans, Brits. Justafewfrom other places.  Also the age of walkersisnow much closer to ours. Few mid-lifers or millennials.

A notable event or two for usos that we passed, as in walking more quickly, some folks.  Very notable for us slow walkers.

The pictured bridge, in Zuberi, is of medieval original.  Local farmers would walk their animals around it to Ward off rabies. No info on how well it worked.

Our toys track our distances. They do so with a large dispersion:

iPhone- 14.0 miles; Android-15.6 miles; Garmin GPS 17.1 miles.

Wildlife: horses with short fuzzy legs, pale tan cows, sheep of non mountain and mountain variety, chickens but not much else.

Dinner included two specialities of Navarre, where we are.

Red peppers in oil garlic, lemon, white wine. Second, the drink, mostly digestif, Patxaran aka Pacharán.

Thursday 21 September

Tomorrow we march with the weather we get to have. Today, however, was warm and sunny.

A lazy do nothing other than reading and making sure all gadgets, maps, and instructions properly set up and functioning.

Our hotel was formerly a monestery.

Casa Beneficios, our hotel.

Back in contact with Nancy and Jerome. Out paths will not cross this time. Their post today included some good suggestions (food especially) for our eventual salamca stop.

We decided to order a la carte as the media pensión (pre-paid) was of less interest. Had a typical evening meal pictured.  I asked for the bill. Ah, it is ok, with a waive of the servers hand. Not the first time in Spain that food was comped when close in price. Never happened in France.

Wednesday 20 September

A day to get  past jet lag. For some reason it has been worse this trip.  

A snippet from memory lane and the earlier  post on Roncesvalles where we first had cujada.                          

” Cuajada is from sheep’s milk, looks like yogurt but tastes like it has not been cultured. Served in attractive earthenware jar with honey to mix in. Excellent. We will order it repeatedly for research purposes.        
Shout out to Bob: To make this cheese, 1) have Hugo bring in a sheep, 2) feed sheep well, 3) milk the sheep, 4) add other stuff until complete, 5)serve to friends and family”.

Roland

Short walk to the monument to Roland; local legend of where the song originates in history.  Good to compare pics from the blog with our earlier visit.

Long planned was a visit to the bird migration center. QB got a fine tee shirt there last time. This time we were fooled: open only on weekends.  Previous visit was on a Sunday.

Another closed place, the XII Chapelle of Charlemagne. Fortunately good views from the openings surrounding the historic building.  

Cheese

Local cheese aquired from the only shop in town.

Dinner with two walkers, Toronto and Bordeaux, clearly enjoying themselves. Stories, wine, ribbing. Bob would have enjoyed them.

Sunday 17-18-19  September 
Oakland, Barcelona, Pamplona ( hotel Palacio Guendelain) Roncesvalles.  

Fly to Barca, train to Pamplona and overnight there, stay for tapas, then to Roncesvalles by taxi.                                            
We are off again to sack the Camino.  We go not as paid professionals – those who were  paid to have their patrons sins  extirpated – but as travelers.                                                   
 During the previous trip (seven years ago)  much of the history of the camino and towns was explored and explained on the blog.    We do not intend to repeat the history part for these posts.

Breakfast

For the hard core there is a search box on the blog in the upper right.   Put in the city where we are staying and the blog from the previous trip should appear magically. It is all magic.  

Pinxos lunch

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Our Pamplona hotel. A real gem. Wonderful old casa well run. 

Monday 21 August, eclipse day.  

A trip to see the effects of the wizard. Yes, you know which wizard.

 
A double good day:. eclipse and a visit to a wonderful park-rose garden.

Window says medical and retail marijuana

That this is a marijuana friendly area cannot be overlooked or the odors avoided.

A few shots of the people and shadows at the eclipse viewing.  A fine viewing; a whetting of our appetite for seeing a total one.  Perhaps July 2019 in South American, preferably by ship.  Research has started. Some may wish to join us.

The early part looked like the Apple logo; QB thought it looked more like a cookie snacked upon.

Of course the end of times folks marched by. Not pictured.

Washington Park and it’s rose garden on the Portland highlite list.  Did not make it to the Japanese garden.

List, a very long list of the garden roses.

Above is a view from the top of the rose garden, looking down into the valley well below.  It was a long very very hot walk up.

The rose garden is several, many times larger than the one in Regents park.

Sunday 20 August. Vintage Portland Hotel

A short trip to see a short event.  Boogs along with several, many, thousands of others. 

Planned, or rather did not plan, this event about a year ago.   Hotel booked but research into the details of the path through Oregon overlooked.  Not quite full eclipseunless the path is diverted by some cosmic event not yet invented ala Doug Adams.

Nothing ever becomes real until it is experienced.
John Keats

Fun fact:
“Michael Zeiler, a cartographer and eclipse chaser who runs the website GreatAmericanEclipse.com, determined when the sunlight during the eclipse will be of the same intensity as it is elsewhere in the solar system. If you were standing on the center of the moon’s shadow in the path of totality at 28 minutes, 40 seconds before totality, you’d experience the intensity of sunlight on Mars. A breath before totality, just 7.7 seconds before the sun is swallowed, you’d experience the sunlight on Pluto. At 59 seconds before totality, you would experience the sunlight on Saturn”

On the plane: many are discussing their travel and accommodations. Southwest calling it The eclipse flight.  Conversions morph to Trump and Nazis.

Hawthorn vertical lift bridge

Hawthorne Bridge historical vertical lift bridge

Vintage Portland hotel

North of the hotel and towards the river the area is very poor looking with lots of drugs and marijuana smell everywhere but no construction; numerous homeless. It looks like the city is going to hell.

Far more pan handlers, Street people, drugged out than we have seen in a while.

Several food stalls looking good except for garbage everywhere

Above food looked good but not clean enough for standing around and sampling.

Heading South the city improved greatly. Reasonable commercial and retail areas, food area, and many hotels.

Found a good ramen place.

Shaved ice with a coconut foam right by the ramen place.

Near the hotel is a park where hungry can come and eat, at least at times.  Was very crowded at 4pm.  This is during clean up.

Friday 28 July

Guests departed during the day. Dinner with Sara et. al.

A very nice table with a very nice family. welcomed us into their home and life. Very touching.

Norman Rockwell scene.

Dinner, well prepared, of course by George. chicken with a fine tomato gunk (his words).

Saturday 29 July.

G&M head off early to a flea market.  We, of course, continue to sleep in.

Breakfast at Cru, another fine one.

Dinner at the apartment,a classic boog dinner.

Sunset by the yachts.

Sunday 30 July

Our anniversary, trip to Jamestown, final dinner.

So ends this adventure.

Took a ferry to Jamestown. A small island of 5K persons.  Asked the boat person about housing prices here: like Newport, nothing under 400K.

Walked around a bit. Quiet, quiet, quiet. Especially compared with busy newport.

Nothing under 400k

Sitting near the water

Anniversary dinner.  Also a big thank you the G&M for arranging the adventure.

QB has been wanting fresh bluefish this whole trip.