Yesterday I had a bit of a meltdown but today was my favourite day so far! Started off a bit rough, Marua didn´t get much sleep because there was a snorer beside her but the first two hours of this morning´s walk were gorgeous. We went through a wood in the dark with our headlamps and it was up into the hills, up a little path surrounded by field of cut hay or corn or something. We made it a good bit up the hill before sunrise, so we sat down in the road and watched the day coming in over Pamplona. It was spectacular, not a sinner on the road and the birds singing. Today´s walk was supposed to be tough, going up another fairly substanstial hill but after the trauma of that first day up the Pryrenees at St. Jean, nothing seems that bad :) There was a row of wind turbines going across the top of the hills and we reached the top of our particular one (named Alto de Perdon) at about 8 a.m. We took a break at the monument up there and had our usual nectarine and babybel cheese, which we seem to be living on...! A pair of French women that had been in our hostel the night before arrived not long after us and in my attempts to offer to take a picture of them at the monument, I ended up headbutting one of them as she was trying to show me which button to press! So that kept Maura entertained all the way down :) That night we stayed in Puente de la Reina and managed to swing a room with 6 bunks (all girls so not much snoring!!). There was a local festival on in the town that evening so all the locals were going around dressed completely in white with red hankerchiefs. Called into the chuch, this big beautiful Gothic sandstone thing with a huge golden alter and afterwards Maura and I stumbled into the middle of this parade thing so I decided to take a video. There were dolls and people dressed up and in the middle of my video these two characters decide to come up and beat us with this foam contraptions which is apparently tradition (?!) so the video is just me screaming and none of the parade! We went to get some fruit and the Señora in the shop told us that there would be a running of the bulls later on that evening so we were delighted. Sure, when would we ever been in such a little town and able to see something like that again. We went back to the hostel and then out of nowhere there was an almerciful storm, , thunder and lightening, rain, wind and huge hailstones! There was talk of the bull running being suspended but it went ahead and we went back to the centre of town to have a look. There were barriers up around the square and they had an area fenced off for the bulls. The shops and restaurants had gates up, the bars big enough for a person to fit through, but not a bull, just in case one of the runners had to duck out of the way. So we were there, 5 of us, and the music was blaring from the little stage they had set up, this real dramatic Spanish music, with lots of trumpeting and drums so we were getting quite into the whole thing, gettting ready to see the bulls and next things a roar went up and about 30 seconds later four, what looked like CALVES, skidded over the cobbles into the main pen. Bulls my eye!! Ah no, they weren´t that small and they had the horns and all but seriously, after that built up! We went into one of the restaurants then and had dinner, out of 5, 4 of us spoke English but we had dinner in Spanish, which was lovely. We had to stay inside then as they let the bulls and the runners out roaming the streets for an hour! Afterwards, there was a little street party and it was a bit like Timoleague festival :) Great craic. They even played a bit of Irish music. It was crazy - here we were, in this tiny town in the middle of nowhere in Spain, dancing to trad tunes out in the square!! Great night but in fairness, like the hermits we seem to be at the moment, we were back and in bed for half 10!
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