Up 472 m down 521 m - high point 757 m
At 8 am we were kicked out of the hostal. Outside it was only just dawn. We stopped in a nearby park for our breakfast, which we picked up yesterday.
Being a Saturday morning the parks and streets were full of Spaniards getting fit; runners in the parks and cyclists in packs on the roads. Every street corner seemed to have a cafe, with quite a few customers even though it was quite early. We stopped at a Panederia for bread and part 2 of our breakfast.
Eventually we left Pamplona behind us. It is a lovely city and one I would like to visit again (one day I will do a post about the things I loved about Pamplona).
Our path took us slowly upward, past the suburb of Cizur Menor. Ahead of us was a ridge, literally covered in wind turbines, all spinning merrily in the wind. We climbed steadily to cross the ridge over the Perdon Pass.
Half way up, our progress was impeded by a flock of about 300 sheep, filling the lane ahead. The scene was very Biblical as the shepherd was leading his flock with his dog beside him at the front, rather than chasing them from the back.
After about 10 minutes the shepherd and flock took a right turn and we continued upward towards the Perdon Pass.At the top we saw one of the modern landmarks of the Camino, a sculpture of pilgrims on foot or on mules walking to Santiago, with the stars of the Milky Way over their heads. Like many pilgrims before us, we added ourselves to this cameo for a photo call.
Once over the pass, the path plunged steeply downward, levelling out near the village of Uterga. We stopped for coffee and Lesley discovered that her iPod had died in the same way mine had in Figeac. Arriving at the village of Muruzabal we decided to take a 2.5 detour to the church of Santa Maria de Eunate, described in our guide book as one of the jewels of the Camino. Sadly, as is the case with the majority of the churches we have encountered in Spain, it was locked.
This is something which is starting to make my blood boil, each and every time we discover a church is locked, and something I feel we need to change in our Churches at home. A locked church (unless it is unsafe) turns itself into a private club or museum, rather than a place for worshipping God (I will finish my rant for today and get back to our trip!)We eventually got to our destination of Puente la Reina, where we had a choice of three hostals. When we had been planning our trip, we read a book called "Travels with my Donkey" where a man walked the Spanish leg of the Camino with a donkey. Having a jackdaw mind, I remembered that in Puente la Reina the author had stopped at a hostal where his donkey had been bated by the people who ran the hostal (so there was no way I was going there). Instead I suggested we follow the donkey's hoof marks and go to the private hostal out of town.
Lesley was not convinced that Puente la Reina was the town where this incident took place until we sat down to eat. At this point, just as in the book, we were served our wine in pint glasses! 
The pints of wine helped to soften the blow of discovering this evening that our detailed blogs about our first day's walking in Spain, got lost somewhere in cyberspace never to be seen again. It has been a good days walking despite the disappointments we had. On the Camino in Spain
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