Two days in one

The last two days on the Camino have been as glorious as the first. We have been descending down the mountains into more rolling hills, although tomorrow morning we have to start the day with a steep ascent followed by a very steep descent. The descents are the killers as the terrain can be quite varied. Our friends George and Deborah Keys are also doing a Camino but began in Portugal. George talks (in their blog) about walking on the various surfaces and said he thought cobblestone was the most uncomfortable, Sharon's nemesis is shale! We are feeling pretty good, Sharon jammed her big toe on the second day descent and will probably lose the toenail but it is not painful. She also has a blister on her ring finger from gripping the walking sticks so hard on descents. Blair has some sore pressure points on his hips but nothing to worry about he just needs to adjust his pack. Thank goodness for walking sticks as they take the pressure off the legs and have saved more than one fall and/or twisted ankle!

Blair as a walking clothes line, see the same thing in the folks ahead.

 

Sharon on an interesting bridge.

Nice picnic lunch spot!

Some difficult paths but always nice to see a town ahead

The first 2 nights we stayed in municipal alburgues. The first night there were 183 beds and it was a zoo in the morning. People began getting up around 5 a.m. and they weren't always very considerate with the use of lamps and voices. We've learnt that getting up early and being off with or before the sun is a good thing. Last night we stayed at a smaller municipal alburgue in Larrasoana there were 12 beds in our dorm all but one was our age or older. The symphony of snores was amazing :). Also the bunk beds were rather noisy as well. So we all knew who was a restless sleeper. Luckily we were so tired that it didn't affect our sleep and we were up and out by 6:40 and walked for the first half hour by the light of the full moon. It was glorious. The last 2 mornings we have stopped mid morning for coffee and croissants, nummy!

Travelling by the light of the moon

Stop at the Super Mercado (grocery store) in the morning on the way out

2 consecutive mornings of croissants and coffee

Many of the Spaniards are very pleasant and wish us Buen Camino, Buenos Dias, or Hola, we are never sure what we will get. But it is a truly amazing trail that has been developed and often is well maintained by the locals or friends of the Camino. They mostly seem to be proud that the Camino runs through their towns and they certainly like the income that the "peregrinos" bring with them.

The farmer's horses

The farmer and Sharon

The weather has become hotter and hotter as we go along. Today by the time we finished at around 3 pm it was about 31 with not a cloud in sight. As we walked the hill up to Zariquiegui where we are tonight there was a farmer tilling his field, he just quit a few minutes ago and it is 9:11 now, really reminded us of Saskatchewan (with bigger hills), even saw a few grasshoppers. Tonite we are staying in a private alburgue which is 11 euros per person as compared to six euros last night but there are only eight in the room,us and 5 young Germans. This alburgue also serves a pilgrims menu which is a dinner family style. Tonite we had a great dinner for 11 euros. Bean soup to start, with bread on the table, always bread, followed by a lettuce salad with great Spanish olive oil, then a fish dish, quite soupy, then hamburgers plain with a garlic sauce, followed by a neopolitan ice cream with chocolate sauce, you also get your choice of red wine or water with that. At the table were the 5 Germans, a Japanese fellow(who speaks fluent Spanish!), 2 Italians, real characters, 2 people from Poland and 2 Australians. Very interesting working back and forth from all these languages!! You'd think the comman language would be Spanish, but no, everyone was translating for everyone else, quite comical really.

So tomorrow we head up to the windmills, not the windmills of Don Quixote...

Up the hill in the morning!

 

 

 

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