A short walk through parkland and past the pentagonal citadel walls that enclose central Pamplona, and we’re there. We call at one of hundreds of stalls to buy the red scarf and white t-shirt – no longer will we be the odd ones out - and plunge through the crowds. We hope to party until tomorrow morning, sleeping on the streets if need be, so there’s nothing for it but to join a huge queue for a left luggage office. In front of us, three young Californian backpackers keep me awake with their conversation, two hours of incessant, imaginative bull-shitting on their travel experiences. It makes me glad that we have our trek to provide a sense of purpose rather than being on the standard world backpackers tour. I can see we’d be too old for it and too interested in seeing the places themselves rather than in impressing our mates or trying to get laid.

Whilst we are waiting the official procession, with its ornately decorated bust of San Fermin carried aloft, passes through a corner of the square. It halts whilst a lone female vocalist addresses it in haunting song. This procession has been carried out on the 7^th July for at least seven hundred years. Once we’re rid of the bags, we battle through the streets to the cathedral in time to see the procession again for the ceremony outside the cathedral called the atrio, buying a bottle of cava en route. As I open it the flying cork nearly takes my eye out and we begin drinking as the parade approaches. Eight enormous giant figures, four metre high wooden structures with faces of made of painted paper mache, dressed in elegant clothing hiding their carriers below, lead the way. There are four pairs of Kings and Queens, representing Europe, America, Asia and Africa (poor Australia has never been added). Also with old paper mache faces are the five cabezudos or councillors, and the six kilikis, villains of history such as Napolean who carry sponge balls on wooden sticks with which they attack any children (or adults) who cross their path. All line up in two rows, and when the cathedral bells ring out the bands begin to play and the giants dance. There are also the zaldikos, half man, half horse, who also run around attacking children. Some kids are screaming with laughter as they are bashed over their heads, others burst into tears and have to be hugged by their attackers afterwards. One proud lad had his own mask and sponge stick and was chasing after all his mates.

As the parade moves away we venture round the streets, and our afternoon is filled with street-performers, jugglers, folk groups, and occasional kiliki or zaldiko attacks. The atmosphere is absolutely electric. Seemingly everywhere are the peñas, local brass bands with deafening drummers who charge around the streets, each with their own bands of followers adding to the anarchy. We have to settle down for a while, drinking our second bottle of bubbly as we listen to a great pop band on stage. In the next street, there’s traditional Basque dancing – it sounds like Medieval court music and the dances involve holding your arms motionless in the air whilst your legs go wild. It’s pretty impossible to do it from watching but hundreds of locals are on the move. The tempo is building all the time, and at ten o’clock the ‘fire bull’ is let loose. A man wearing a wooden frame in the shape of a bull runs through the streets at full pelt. The frame is covered in whirring, sparking Catherine wheels whilst rockets fire off the head in all directions. He runs past us and is lost in the crowd in seconds.

By now we’ve opened our third bottle of bubbly (this may sound excessive but it really was the cheapest drink!) and headed to the citadel walls for the fireworks display. I always love fireworks but this display was the most spectacular I’ve seen, completely spellbinding as half the sky was lit in blinding explosions of colour. Some combinations are even arranged to draw giant, multicoloured smiling faces in the air, whilst hundreds of rockets shot up, exploded and fell in wonderful colours and when half way down reversed and flew up once more. I’ve seen nothing like it. It’s midnight, and it feels like things are only just beginning…..

We’re hoping to get a good night’s sleep before heading in for the fiesta tomorrow, so we eventually get away and check in to a lovely private hostel with hardwood bunks, beautiful gardens and a friendly owner, Maribel. She’s clearly excited about the start of the fiesta, though she has regrets at the international character of the encierro or running of the bulls these days.

“There are two many foreigners and backpackers come now. They try to reach out and touch the bulls. They don’t understand that the bulls are sacred to us”. This seems a bit rich, given that the bulls from each day’s encierro are killed in the bull fights that evening.

“Even some women run now,” she continues. “It’s not meant for women. It’s for young men to prove themselves. What do women have to prove?”

She sends us off for free swimming nearby, at a huge, five pool outdoor complex, and we have the Olympic-sized main pool almost to ourselves. On the streets, all are wearing the red and white outfits – since the rocket launch, the red neckerchiefs have been moved from waist and tied around the neck, and when we pop into another bar the tv coverage of mayhem is continuing – we too are getting very excited about tomorrow. I had been worried that it would be hard for a foreign couple to get into the spirit of the fiesta, but the atmosphere is so electric that already we’re buzzing.

We stop to eat a huge bread cake at a bakery in Cirauqui. This villages name means ‘nest of thieves’ but it seems safe today. It’s a tightly packed jumble of whitewashed cottages atop a steep hill, the route being hard to follow through a maze of tiny winding alleys, arched gateways and secluded squares. Beyond this the countryside begins to level off until we reach a huge, cobbled stone bridge, the Puente La Reina or ‘Queen’s bridge’. The Queen in question was Urraca, whose chalice we saw in a Leon museum – she ordered construction to help pilgrims cross the river in the eleventh century. It has six graceful arches and a slight kink in the middle – presumably where constructions began from each bank had met. Through an archway on the far side is the town that shares the bridge’s name, which sprung up to serve the pilgrims using it. It has three parallel streets, long and narrow and lined with quite magnificent brick mansions, the projecting wooden eaves of which, exquisitely carved, seem to extend half way across the road. Everything is maintained immaculately; there’s obviously a lot more wealth around in Navarra than in the crumbling villages we saw in Castille. One of the few modern touches is a high wall, enclosed by wire fencing, together with a set of lines painted on the concrete – a pelota court. It looks like squash but with only one wall. Our guidebook informs us that other popular Basque sports include boulder-lifting, the practitioners of which enjoy the status of ‘rock’ stars, and, apparently, grass-cutting. I presume they would be welcome anywhere when on tour.

Opposite a monastery at Irache, attached to a winery, we discover a remarkable public fountain. It has two taps for the refreshment of passing walkers. One reads agua, the other, I read with disbelief, is vino tinto. Like children let loose in a sweet factory we fill our mugs and begin drinking – even though it’s nine in the morning. Spanish pilgrims going past aren’t even bothering to stop, and it seems we’re displaying the typically rash British attitude to alcohol. I try to imagine the scene if a free wine fountain was set up in a village at home – there’d be a huge crowd, much worse for wear, thronging the area. I’ve noticed the same thing in bars –the Spaniards (and the pilgrims from France) often leave without drinking half their bottle of wine or a good part of their beer, being there for the company more than the drink. Possibly it’s just that alcohol is so cheap here – limitless wine is available free with food in most bars, but how often do you see anyone in a British pub leave half their pint? Even if your mates are leaving immediately, most of us try to down whatever we’ve got left.

We stagger on into Estella, a sizeable town, and join a queue of about a hundred pilgrims waiting for the hostel to open its doors at noon. When the doors do open, there’s a mad crush to get in and bag the bunks – with not much Christian spirit on display. Our bunks seem fine until we notice that the guy next to us is, for some reason, walking the camino wearing two large cowbells round his neck. He even wears them to sleep.

Estella has many beautiful old houses and unusual churches - but also it’s fair share of busy roads and drab concrete blocks. For us the main attraction is the outdoor swimming pool, where we recover from our morning’s indiscretions. I would be relaxed, but I’m trying to summon up courage to do something I’ve been dreading – go to a barbers for a haircut. To be honest, I hate having my hair cut even at home, and being asked hundreds of incomprehensible questions in Spanish about razors, blades, shavers and scissors doesn’t improve the experience. Still, that’ll be fine for another eight weeks.

More olive groves and arid scrubland leads to Los Arcos, another fine town and a twin to Viana. Reluctantly we leave here on a dusty track which runs straight for many miles. After several, we realise we’ve not seen any pilgrim marker arrows since starting the track. We can’t bear to head back, so instead cut across down the rows of vines and leap the ditch to get to the main road, along which we continue, dodging swerving juggernauts, before eventually finding the camino again. Villamayor de Monjardin turns out to be another picturesque and atmospheric village, with a beautiful hostel in a wide, low stone mansion looking like an old English coaching inn. Inside are three storeys of low ceilings, grand fireplaces and crooked beams. We head out to climb to the castle which dominates the village atop a conical hill swathed in woodland. The bushes scratch us to bits as we scramble up. Access through the castle walls is possible only at one point where a stone staircase twists round above a sheer drop; it must have been almost impregnable. Inside is a tiny hermitage with a visitors’ book; the vast view of our onward route inspires us to sign it – ‘en route, de Cabo Finisterre a Istanbul’.

Back at the hostel, the Dutch volunteers are cooking up a sausage stew and serving us on a huge oak table with ten other pilgrims, mostly French and German. We’ve been going for a month now and are only a week or so from the French border where most pilgrims’ begin their journey, so at last we have some credibility with our peers. Or so we think – the French girl next to me has been walking for seven weeks already. For once there’s some English spoken, good enough for us to enjoy a joke and a bit of a laugh – something we’ve sorely missed. We’ve had a great day today; Navarra with its ancient villages and rocky hills is giving the best walking we’ve had so far.