Obanos

After my detour to Eunate I spent the night in Obanos, a prosperous village close to Puente la Reina.

I stayed at Casa Raichu, technically a Casa Rural, a kind of hotel in Spain. I really enjoyed this place. It was a new four story house run by the owner, Elena, who was super hospitable. She welcomed me at 1:00 as the first guest, and got me settled: told me to take off my boots, took me upstairs to see my room (shared bathroom) and told me the times of meals, then checked me in with US Passport and Pilgrim Passport. We conversed in animated voices, all in Spanish. (Or, she met me where I was on the language continuum.)

The place was super clean and she had a guy swabbing all the marble and tile floors the same time as the robo vacuum was patrolling the common space. Impressive!

Around 3:00 a party of 6 Korean pilgrims arrived, and an Australian couple, who had walked from Le Puy, France.

We were served excellent local Navarra red wine on the terrace, and had some social time before sitting down to a generous meal at the dining room table.

After dinner we all retreated to our rooms to regroup for the morning. I took advantage of the laundry service, and did my usual sorting of clothes and items into what I was going to carry the next day and what I was going to transport in the duffle. I seem to be perennially losing things and then finding them again, and annoying myself,

I enjoyed the view from my window looking out over town, and observing some neighborhood dynamics. There was a big dog across the way on a balcony who liked to bark, and the owners were shushing him over and over. People live close to each other in Spain. I was looking over someone’s back patio, and across to the balconies of another building.

Clouds formed, and then there was thunder and lightning and heavy rain as I went to sleep.

In the morning the air was fresh, and it was time for breakfast at the dining room table with fellow guests. One of the guys from Korea asked if I knew the song, “Hotel California,” and we had a good laugh. Then it was time to take off and walk the 10k to Cirauqui.