9/16 A group of us walk into central Pamplona and head straight to a pastry shop for coffee and decadent pastry. We sit outside at tall tables and discuss who is staying and who is going to keep walking. It was then that Nikee and I decide we’ll sightsee Pamplona together and split a hotel room to have a break from communal living.
Nikee and I head to the city’s main square, the Plaza del Castillo. We find some pilgrims Nikee knows at café Iruna’s outdoor tables. Something delicious-looking is on their plates. So, after we catch up with them, we get our own table and eat more breakfast.
Charlene: I feel guilty waking you up just to tell you how spoiled I feel 🙂 I’m sitting in an outside café in a sunny Pamplona with free WiFi. Just finished some kind of tapa thing. Pondering how long I can “get away with” staying here. Going to share the cost of a posh hotel with another pilgrim. We joke about taking advantage of our consumerism before we become too spiritual. This might mean a massage rather than shoes though. I love you Stella.
Stella: Already awake. Yeah for spoiled! Yeah for WiFi! Yeah for a posh hotel! Yeah for a massage! Yeah for the nurture of spirit! You enjoy every minute of your beautiful day. Yeah for love! Sending you an abundance of love across the ocean. XOXO
After eating and basking in the moment of where we are, we go inside the perfectly preserved, art deco café Iruna and ask the staff about places to stay nearby. We are sent to Hotel Perla (Hemingway used to stay here). For 40 euros each, we get an immaculately clean, modern room with two twin beds and a handsome bathroom. We leave our packs in the room and head back out for a day of sightseeing.
As per the guidebook recommendations, we visit the gothic Cathedral of Santa Maria la Real, the facade of Pamplona Town Hall, a, unfortunately, closed Museo de Navarra, and shop at, of course, Caminoteca where Nikee buys a spork.
Nikee is from the city of Perth in Australia. She’s around my age, 40s, fit, with a sense of humor and ease that veils a need for order. When we sit outside with a refreshment in the afternoon, Nikee speaks of needing to call her husband when the time zone is right. She asks about me. Do I have someone? I tell her I had 11 years with Stella and although we are not together anymore, we haven’t completely cut the cord. Nikee looks as though someone poured ice down her back. She popped the words out like bubbles: “Don’t you want children?” Later she apologizes for the question, saying it wasn’t appropriate, and how sometimes even she’s been mistaken for a lesbian. I’m numb to what is or isn’t an appropriate response to the reality of who I am. Yet, imaginary ice trickles down my spine.
We each bathe before dinner. Nikee’s histrionics about getting the luxury of a bathtub while on the Camino include convincing me to take a photo to send to her husband. Over our pilgrim fare dinner, we seem talked out until the subject of wine comes up. We both say no thank you to the waiter. Nikee tells me she has nine years of sobriety. I tell her I had 16 years before I went out for a night after a bad breakup, but just that once. Sober four more years I say, but I do some marijuana now and again. The conversation becomes tense as Nikee believes strictly in the AA program of total abstinence, and I do not. After a while, I shut the conversation down because there is no seeing eye to eye.
After a day in Pamplona with Nikee, I welcome nighttime, left to my solitary thoughts. The parallels of my Camino life and relationships and my other life lead me to my third Camino epiphany: The Camino is life.