Pamplona

Plaza Castillo at siesta time

Las night (at around 11pm) I got back safe and sound to Madrid from my tour of the north of Spain which by the way was lovely. Between buses, trains, carrying a heavy back-pack and walking all day long, everyday, I got back exhausted and could hardly wake up this morning. Actually I haven’t done much today except for the laundry, getting a problem with my Spanish SIM card fixed in the city, catching up with some people, downloading all the pictures from my camera and writing my stories for the blog. This time around I did not stress much about how to get to places and where to stay. I had done some research on the prices of buses vs. trains just to know what was less expensive, but I did not actually buy the tickets until I got there. And for the hostels, I just wrote down some addresses but did not make any reservations: I showed up to the places, asked for a room and if they did not have one they either called some other place for me or I just walked in the area looking for another one. I learned that hostels (hostales or pensiones in Spanish) are just like gas stations in the US: if you see one in one corner or one side of the street you are guarantee to bump into another 3 at the following corner.

The experience of traveling by bus for a couple of hours between cities was new to me as I had always taken the train. The buses where very comfortable, with a TV set featuring a movie, a thing for your headset so you can insert them and listen to the movie or listen to different music channels (just like the ones in the airplane), and with a driver who would announce each coming stop and the duration of the “layover” at the different towns. I liked the fact that bus stations are smaller, less hectic and less crowded than train stations. The only but for me with the buses was the fact that I could not read. I’ve always heard that it is bad to read when you are inside a car and then on top of that I usually start getting a headache when I read inside a car. Luckily I was up to date downloading the pod cast editions to my ipod of my favorite NPR shows (which I also happen to think are 2 of the smartest radio shows in the US): Wait, wait, don’t tell me and This American Life. They kept me laughing, crying and both laughing and craying during my journeys.

PAMPLONA

Old Town in Pamplona - Encierro Sculpture

I left Madrid at 8 o’clock in the morning on Thursday and took a 5 hour bus to the city of Pamplona, the capital of the state of Navarra. Pamplona (192,ooo habitants) is known worldwide for its festival of San Fermin which takes place during the first/second week of July. During this festival hundreds of crazy locals and tourists (and I call them crazy because you definitely have to have some degree of craziness to participate in it) take part on the also world famous “Encierro” or running of the bulls. The actual path of the Encierro is a half a mile stretch which begins on the town hall and ends at the bullring. And once again hundreds of crazy people run for their lives along this half a mile stretch as they are chased by a couple of running bulls. The interesting thing is to see the signs on the streets that show you which way the “Encierro” goes and also the plaques with the description on what happens to you and the bull when you reach this particular section of the “Encierro”.

Signs leading to the Encierro - Explanation of Estafeta Street tract

Estafeta Street

I arrived in Pamplona right at the beginning of siesta time. Talk about a tradition that sounds more and more appealing to me. Madrid, being the big cosmopolitan city it is has lost a lot of the siesta tradition; but smaller cities like Pamplona and the others I visited in this trip are still holding tight to it. I remember arriving to Pamplona and feeling as if I had arrived to a ghost town: hardly any souls on the streets, all the shops in the city center and old town were closed and it was so quiet you could hear a pin drop. But between 4 and 5 PM when all the stores began to re-open for business the city had another feel to it: lively, noisy, and vibrant. The many pincho bars (this is how they call tapas in the northern part of Spain) began to get more and more crowded as the night went by. After walking all over town I decided to go to the pincho bar a the bottom of my hotel to have some pinchos and then called it a night as I wanted to wake up early the following day to do some more walking around town before heading to my next destination: San Sebastian-Donostia