23rd October 2009 – Pamplona

I had to get up early to repeat the ritual of pouring money into the parking machine, which is becoming a significant  expense and something that we had not anticipated.  Our accommodation in the towns in which we have overnighted so far – Girona, Huesca, and Pamplona, has been in the heart of the old town.  Great for centrality, great for taking in the atmosphere but terrible for parking.  Parking in Spain, it transpires, is a high maintenance activity.  If you are lucky enough to find a parking spot the maximum stay, as enforced by the the parking machines, is two hours.  We have to keep sneaking back to our car and replacing our expired ticket with a new one.  You are not really supposed to do this but it works for us so far.

On the way back from my early parking sortie I got talking to two Korean girls who were looking for accommodation.  They were doing the Camino de Santiago and had just arrived in Pamplona.  I wish now that I had asked them how long they intended t stay for, as that would be useful hostel information, but it is still encouraging to know that tourists are in Pamplona in October.

The Camino de Santiago is a ten centuries old pilgrims trail to Santiago de Compostela in Galicia.  The walk has many start points including Canterbury and Milan but they all converge over the Pyranees and so that region is held to be the proper start of this walk.  Naturally France insists that the CdS starts in France while Spain is equally adamant that it does not actually start until it hits Spanish soil.  In any case the mountainous walk staggers through Jaca and and then West via Pamplona.  The pilgrims way has clear religious significance but it also popular with walkers and adventurers, you don’t have to be Christian, or even religious to enjoy it.  I knew that the Camino was popular in the summer but was not too sure how many people would be brave enough to cross the Pyranees on foot once the snows had arrived.  So far the snow has only claimed the mountain tops but by January there is far more white territory around. Even in October the cold wind and the heavy rain can’t appeal to that many hikers but there are clearly a few hikers in Pamplona.

The two Korean girls told me they had met lots of other walkers along the way, and that they were enjoying their walk so far.

Jana was pretty tired after her driving the day before but I managed to coax her out of bed with a description of how nice the food is likely to be for breakfast and a reminder that we were in Pamplona, a place we both really enjoyed so far.

Jana and I have been dreaming about opening our own backpackers hostel for years.  We have talked and talked about it, we have made detailed plans and spreadsheets about how we want to run the place, we have told our friends and family about our plans; so you might think that looking around Spain for a suitable location would be an absolute pleasure; unfortunately not so.  We have been on the go for over a year, first in South America and now here.  We are adept at living out of a bag and moving on every few days but what we are both yearning for now is some stability.  We look forward to having our own place, I am craving a desk, Jana wants a wardrobe and we both want to have jobs again (and an income).  We are also finding it hard to stick to our budget because Spain, not surprisingly, is far far more expensive than South America.  Accommodation here in Pamplona is $35 a night and that is the cheapest we have found so far, the average is $50 and we always pick the budget spots.  Plus we don’t want to sit in our room and do nothing, we need to get out and about and learn about the city as much as we can.  It all costs money and it is leading to a few tensions.  I think some how we have to remember to enjoy ourselves and not feel so downbeat, as we have felt, on and off, for the past couple of days.

Pamplona has helped enormously with all this.  The more we wander around the more we like the place.

We popped into the tourist information office today to get some idea of the type and extent of accommodation in town.  There are plenty of pensions but only one proper backpackers hostel, Hostal Hemingway.  Tourists come to Pamplona all year round but there is a spike in July when people come for the Sanfermines.  At this time the hotels and hostels are choc-full and many residents open their houses to guests, making a tidy sum from grateful tourists who would otherwise be sleeping in the streets.  The tourist info people were unable to tell us how many visitors have a year but they claim that the numbers are high and that only a handful of hotels are closed in the winter.

We think that Pamplona is the favourite spot so far but we still have two weeks left to go and there are likely to be plenty of other potential towns around.  We also need to talk to more people about tourism in Pamplona.  The city is quite small, about 200,000 people but there is lots to do here – especially if you enjoy walking – and it is quite famous for its’ size.

We went to Hostal Hemingway today to check out how they are doing.  The place is run by three young guys who went into business together and opened a backpackers hostel  Prices are average, around $20 per person per night, and there are a mix of dorms and private rooms.  The kitchen seems adequate and there is a large-enough lounge area for hanging out and meeting people.  It looked like a small scale but decent hostel.  Sadly for them there were not many guests there.  The guy on the desk, one of the owners, told us that they are very busy during the summer months but things are quiet right now.  Not such a good sign perhaps.

I think that being here out of season is a good way get get an impression of how a town does for tourists outside of the high-season summer months and is probably more useful than making this tour in July or August.

We have decided to have one more full day in Pamplona as we like it so much and then head to San Sebastian, or Donostia as the Basques call it.