2012-09-13 Thursday

2012-09-13 Thursday

Estella / Los Arcos

Camino Day 6. We woke up at 0600 to pack and get ready, we all had breakfast at 0700 at a nearby bakery and were on our way at 0745. Nancy and I shipped our packs to our destination, Los Arcos, 22 Km away. 

Nancy, Terry and Paulo leaving Estella

Just outside Estella, there is a Winery that has a wine tap for the pilgrims, but they had not opened it by the time we got there, but we stopped to take photos. 

Free wine for pilgrims!

Monaster's chapel, outside Estella

We faced a steep hill leaving the city, but after that there were mostly rolling hills, beautiful scenery. The only other steep hill was just before the city of Villamayor de Monjardin, at the Km 11. We passed many vineyards and a few olive groves. 

Erico, Nancy, Terry, Paulo

Nancy and Terry, walking past vineyards

Erik and Paulo, approaching Monjardin

Met many of our Camino friends during today's segments: Linda, Cathy, Angela, Erik, Jamil and many others that I do not recall the names. 

Today I got to talk more with two pilgrims I had met before, two Canadians, a grandfather and his granddaughter; this is his third Camino on 3 consecutive years, two years ago he did alone, last year he did with his daughter, the young woman's mother.

We arrived in Villamayor de Monjardin, a small city perched on a hill top, at 

1040, we stopped for about 15 minutes, to drink coffee and to buy bread, ham and cheese to make sandwiches to eat later, from here until our destination, 11 miles away, there are no villages. 

Terry eating his snack

Pilgrims on a break. Linda is consulting her guide

Angela and Erik

We stopped at 1300 to eat our sandwiches by the side of the road. One hour later we arrived in Los Arcos, our packs were waiting for us at the Pension Mavi. 

Nancy and Terry resting during our lunch break by the side of the road

Paulo and Erico at city's entrance

My knee still bothered me quite a bit, specially on the last 3-4 Km, but it was better than the last time I carried the back pack, so tomorrow I am shipping the pack again. 

After we settled in our hotel and showered, we went to the albergue for pilgrims to wash our clothes at their coin operated laundry machine.  We went to a nearby bar, sat at a sidewalk table and had a bottle of wine and appetizers while we waited for the washer to finish, Paulo volunteered to go back to the albergue and hung our clothes to dry, Nancy and I would go later to pick them up. 

While we were at the bar, Nancy struck up conversation with a couple of Americans at a nearby table, and later she came back to our table with one of them, saying that he was a doctor, and that he had volunteered to tape up our knees. Nancy went back to our hostel to get the KT tape while I talked with the guy. I asked him what kind of doctor he was, and he admitted that he was not a doctor, he was not even a physical therapist. When he was getting ready to walk the Appalachian Trail, a therapist friend of his showed him how to tape legs and knees for the most common ailments; he through hiked the Trail a couple of years ago. He taped Nancy's knee and mine, and I bought him a glass of beer. We met "Doc" several times later on during the Camino.

Before going back to the albergue to pick our clothes up we toured the large romanesque church, very impressive. 

Estella's church

Nancy at our hostal

Estella's church

Terry and Nancy at city's gate

Erico at city's gate

Terry and Nancy enjoying wine after the long walk

Terry and Nancy said that they were full and did not want to dine, so while they attended the 7:30PM mass, Paulo and I went to a nearby restaurant; no pilgrims in the place, just locals, and had salad and pasta for dinner. And wine, off course; we had ordered just a couple of glasses, but the waiter brought a bottle and said "drink all you want, and pay for what you drink." We suspected that he had us figured out.