August 29 Uterga

The trek on our first day was painful, which I had anticipated and wanted to get it over-with asap. We left Pamplona making our way through the quaint town of Cizur Menor. Being Sunday morning, there were many walkers and joggers on the street, with many locals wishing us a “buon camino”, which was also the greeting of many hikers we met along the way. The distance we needed to cover seemed endless and we could see the windmills at the top of distant hills which was the ascent to the summit of the mountain. The total ascent was approximately 400m, which was extremely difficult, especially this being the first day with packs on our backs. The views from the summit was spectacular as we could see both city of Pamplona and our next destination, the village of Utegra. The ascent was painful, but the descent was equally painful, but on different parts of the legs (the knees). We could go no further and found a wonderful Albergue Camino del Perdon where we met some wonderful walkers. Tiggy from England who injured her knee on the first day. She is young and trying to break into fashion design. Yana is from Switzerland, but originally from Czech Republic; Richard from Ireland but living in Japan and Paul from Belgium who is trying to complete the trek in record time. See Pictures>>