As I mentioned yesterday, today we are traveling to the beginning of the route we have chosen to walk the Camino de Santiago, which I will refer to as “El Camino.”

We are going to Pamplona, which is a stop on our El Camino route, but we will only be there an hour in order to catch a bus to St-Jean-Pied-de-Port in France.

In the meantime allow me to introduce tou you the unique tradition of the Catalan Christmas Pooper! Yes, I wrote pooper! Also known as El Caganer.

Well, read the wiki and explore this topic all you want. From what our tour guide told us, this tradition started in the 18th century. Small figures of a peasant in a cap pooping were hidden in nativity scenes for people to find. Now, there is a store in Barcelona dedicated to selling all kinds of these figurines ranging from “Michael Jackson” to the “Pope” and political figures.

The figurines stemmed from the primary tradition of families chopping logs, propping them up with legs and painting a face on one side, then putting a cap on it. An additional blanket is then draped over the log to keep it “warm.” Children are encouraged to feed the log “fruits and vegetables” on Christmas Eve so that it will “poop” out wonderful presents the next day!?!?!?

Well, have I now lost some of you? I can only speculate that this tradition maybe came about due to the need for eating fruits and vegetables to maintain proper bowel function (i.e. prevent constipation). If anyone reads through the literature and finds out, please post a comment. I’m pretty sure this will be the strangest thing I post about, but our journey has only begun so who knows?

On our car ride through the Pyrenees on the way to Pamplona . . .

Comic relief: Today at a café I attempted to use my horrific Spanish language skills. I attempted to order an orange juice by saying “juego de naranja, por favor.” I should have said “jugo” of course. I enjoy the fact that I said “may I have game of orange please.” Well, this is embarrassing. By all rights I should know Spanish considering my ancestors hail from Catalonia and my father’s middle name was “Mestres” which is distinctly Catalan. I will go in to more of my family history in a later post. I am a curious mix of Spanish, Filipino, Swedish, and good old American Yankee redneck, with a very light sprinkling of native American. And yes, I can trace all of these threads with some historical documents to back it up!

Today is turning out to be a lengthy post, but there is so much to share!

We had an uneventful bus ride from Pamplona to St-Jean-Pied-de-Port in France. We will be back in Pamplona in two days after we walk across the Pyrenees back to Spain. So here is the pictorial conclusion to our day which sums it up very nicely . . .

Good night! More adventures tomorrow. The official start of our El Camino! The next two days will be the most strenuous!