Day 3 and a total of 67 kms covered. The towns that I’ve stayed at or passed through have been fairly to very quiet on the noise and activity scale. Not so Pamplona. The streets were crammed full of people and my ears were crammed full of their noise: such a contrast from my walk today. The festival that is happening (it’s still going as I write blog from my bunk) has some connection to the running of the bull’s July festival, but there were no bulls in sight and I reckon they would have turned tail and run from the multiple bands that were roaming the streets and whipping up a frenzy. The banner in the photo was being swirled energetically and followed by its own brass band and a herd of humans singing and jumping to what was likely a nationalistic Basque tune. But they had some competition: a large, seated band was playing Spanish style oompah music in the main square, a smaller roving band was loud but slightly more nimble-fingered than the flag wavers or, if you prefered, you could groove to some reggae tunes down a side street. Reluctantly, I retreated to my hostel as my feet were screaming “What the heck, you’ve been walking for over 5 hours and now you want to follow the party. I want to be put up”. So I did as bidden but what a buzz.