2012-09-12 Wednesday

2012-09-12 Wednesday 

Puente la Reina / Estella

Camino Day 5. We set our alarms for 0630 and met up for a quick breakfast of coffee with milk and toasted French bread at 0700. Even little towns have good baguettes. 

Nancy is taking a bus to our next destination , Estrella, 22Km away. Terry, Paulo and I started walking at 0730. Today is overcast, with temperature of mid 70s, perfect for walking. 

My knees are bothering me, the physical therapist told me Yesterday that was because my leg muscles are too tight and that my backpack is too heavy at 10 Kg (22 lbs), making the situation worse; she recommended that I should reduce it to 8 Kg. Last night I went over my pack contents and got rid of 1Kg, I hope I will not need any of the things I left at hotel, one of the things I did to reduce weight was to cut my already small towel in half. 

We keep bumping into the same people. You pass a village and people that left earlier are at a bar resting and eating, you say hello to the people you know and keep walking. When you stop to rest and for refreshment at the next village, the previous guys catch up with you, we wave at each other and exchange a few words, and the leapfrogging continue. 

Sometimes when you stop in a place and people you know are there, we sit with them, and have the chance of a more extended conversation. 

Here in the Camino you can have as much solitude or companionship as you want. Today, we met again with Michelle, an young Canadian woman, early 30's. She has lived in Brazil for 9 months and speaks Portuguese, we all walked together for about one hour, and then she stopped for a break while we continued on. She told us a funny incident that happened to her in Puente la Reyna, she was staying at the albergue side of the hostel we were staying in, and when she went to the communal showers, she left her underwear in a sink and went to one of stalls to shower, when she left the stall, she found an old guy at the sink washing her underwear! She asked him "What are you doing?" and he answered "oh, I am just trying to help a fellow pilgrim…" 

Puente la Reyna - Estella: Long line of pilgrims

Erico, Michelle, Paulo

Paulo, Michelle

We met again with the Brazilians Jamil and Erik when we stopped for our snack in the village of Lorca, they were already at the bar eating. We sat together talked briefly, took some pics and then they departed.

Jamil, Erik, Erico, Paulo

We met again when they stopped in a village 4 Km further down, Erik has a feet full of blisters and had stopped again to rest his feet and reapply medication and tape. We stopped there too, I needed to apply a bit more if Second Skin liquid bandage to the top of my left foot pinky toe, it was bothering me a bit and I want to prevent it from getting worse.

Pilgrims on a break

Pilgrims on a break

Pilgrim crossing an arch

Old church

Old church

Another church

Pimientos hung out to dry

The five of us walked together the 4 remaining Km to Estella, our destination for the day. Soon we came upon a couple of young woman from Barcelona we all knew from previous days, formed a loose group and walked together to Estella. Jamil and Erik wanted to walk 5 Km more today, but due to the sorry state of Erik's feet they decided to call it a day and stop in Estella.

When we entered the city our group broke off, Jamil, Erik and the two girls from Barcelona headed to the Albergue and T, P and I went searching for the Hotel San Andres, were N is waiting for us. It was 1440 when we got there, we made 22 Km in a little over 7 hours, including stops. 

Towards the end, my knees, specially the left one, is hurting a lot, so I decided that  tomorrow, which will be quite hilly, I will send my pack by the currier service that is used by many pilgrims. 

The San Andres hotel is small and quite old with dark and narrow halways with old and dark furniture in the bedrooms but at 60 euros for 2 rooms sharing a common bathroom, I am not complaining.

We quickly showered and went out to find a bar that was still serving food, for a snack. We shared platters of local cheeses and Iberian cured meets, accompanied by good local wine. 

I took our dirty clothes to a commercial laundry with a 2 hr turn around and went back to the hotel to rest, Terry and Nancy stayed at the hotel to take a siesta, Terry  has adopted the Spanish's siesta habit with gusto.

We went out for dinner at around 1930, but it took us a while to settle on a place to eat, we ended up going to an american style dinner, where they served paellas, burgers and milk shakes. Each "couple" ordered a salad and a paella to share, Terry and Nancy ordered a chicken paella and Paulo and I ordered a seafood one. While we were still eating our salad the waiter brought one of the paellas, when Paulo and I had just finished our salad the waiter brought the second paella, it was the chicken one, when I looked at the other paella, we saw that Terry had eaten already a good portion of OUR seafood paella. We said "Terry, you ate our paella! you had ordered a chicken one!" He's excuse was that he thought he may have been misunderstood by the waiter and had gotten a seafood one instead. For the remainder of the Camino, Paulo and I never let him forget that he ate our paella; we, jokingly, made a big scene during lunch or dinner to make it clear which plate of food was ours and which was theirs, saying that we needed to be careful with Delaware lawyers, if you do not watch out, they eat your food.