Camino 2013 - Day 13: Torres Del Rio To Navarrete

Woke up after a good nights sleep to find the blister on my heal deflated.  This was a good thing and it put me in a good mood.  Sadly I didn't do anything to protect the blister before I set out today.

We left right at dawn.  It was a cloudy morning but would clear out later in the day.  Our first stop was Viana.  Along the the way I noticed the Texan's business card on top of a Camino marker.  Apparently it was meant for the Irishman he was racing.

We arrived in Viana in time to see them dismantling the fencing that kept the bulls in order - we'd missed another running of the bulls it appears.  We stopped and I bought some Voltaren (some wonderful anti inflammatory gel) and pilgrim's candy - i.e. Ibuprofen.  I took "vitamin I" every day while I walked but I did take less than I did last time (1,200 mg vs 1,600 mg last time).  I took it mostly before I went to bed and before I started walking in the morning.  I'm sure it helped in speeding my recovery each day.  The amount went down later on when I would forget to take it and I didn't miss it.

The church in Viana.

We stopped at a cafe and bought some breakfast.  As we were leaving we ran into the Irishman.  He was a retired flight attendant who now lived in California.  We started walking together and swapped stories.  I asked him if he was really racing the Texan.  He looked at me and, with a little despair in his voice, said "I'm not racing him.  I'm trying to get away from him!"  We all got a laugh out of that.

In Viana I was feeling pretty good and, wanting to catch back up to our original itinerary, I suggested to G_v that we walk past Logroño where we were going to stop and walk the extra distance to Navarrete instead.  We'd also heard the Texan say that he was going to stop in Logroño so bypassing that city might be a good idea.  Hearing this the Irishman said that he would also walk on to Navarrete to get away from him.

Cool graffiti along the Camino.

We reached Logroño and we separated from the Irishman so we could find some food and he could see the city.  We stopped in a bar and I had a sandwich and soda.  I still felt good at this time so we headed out of town figuring the Irishman would be waiting for us somewhere along the Camino.

We passed a grocery store and G_v went in to buy some supplies.  I kept on going looking for an ATM as I was running out of cash.  By the time I found the ATM and gotten out some cash, I realized I didn't know where the grocery store was.  I walked around a little bit but didn't see the store or G_v (She wandered around looking for me as well).

Not wanting to wander around anymore I decided to continue on figuring she knew where I were going.  I wound my way through the outskirts of the city passing by school campuses along the way and then, as the Camino entered a park I hit "the wall".  The energy drained out of me and my foot started to ache.  My heels had been getting really sore at the end of the day and both of my heels were pounding.  I stopped and smeared some voltaren on the heels.  I also saw that my blister had reinflated and was getting bigger.  Crap.

I continued on but I wasn't going anywhere fast.  I was stopping often.  The wall that I'd hit continued to wail on me for the next ten kilometers.  G_v caught up with me and we walked together ... slowly ... along the trail up to Navarrete.  The Irishman caught up with us as well during one of my many rest stops this day.

The bull, the symbol of Spain.

G_v walked ahead with the Irishman while I dragged my sorry ass along the trail.  Every step was an effort.  I'm sure I was weaving a little as I walked.  I felt terrible ... like I was an extra for the Walking Dead.  We reached Navarrete and headed for the municipal albergue.  We'd thought about going to another albergue for a change since Navarrete was another repeat town but I was in no mood to wander around the town so we went straight for the albergue.

We entered the albergue and who was sitting at the reception table?  The Texan.  I think I heard the Irishman gasp audibly.  All I could manage was an eye roll.  The hospitaleras took the Texan to his bed.  When they got back I sat down at the table.  The two hospitaleras were French.  As I sat there G_v talked with them checking us in.  The hospitaleras, though, had another idea.  They were so happy to meet a francophone that they just wanted to talk, talk, and talk some more.  G_v knew I wasn't doing very well and was trying to move the ladies along.  She was worried about me as I was pale and didn't look very healthy.  I crossed my arms on the table and put my head down.  The hospitaleras were talking about family names and genealogies with G_v.  All I was doing was thinking, very loudly in my head: "Shut the F up and give me an F-ing bed!!!"

G_v finally got the ladies to give us bed assignments (She had also convinced them to give the Irishman a bed in a room away from the Texan's bed) and they led us up to the third floor.  I managed to climb the stairs with my pack.  I dropped my pack, hard, and fell over into the bottom bunk (Thank you G_v for letting me take the bottom bunk).  Oh yeah, the Texan was in the next bunk over - yippee.

I could hardly move.  Everything below the waist ached.  The thought of getting up to take a shower was too hard to contemplate.  I was semi-delirious I think.  I couldn't get comfortable as I laid on the bunk.  My thought were all over the map.  Strangely I never thought of quitting the Camino but not doing the Appalachian Trail ... that I thought about.  I figured I was not up to it, that I was having so much more trouble this time than last Camino (not sure if that was really true or I'd just forgotten how tough my first Camino had been).

G_v shoved cookies she'd bought in a bakery in my face (The cookies were good - this was a big sacrifice for G_v).  I ate them and drank some water.  It took a while but I started to feel better.  The cookies raised my energy level enough  that I got up and took a lukewarm cold shower (the only cold shower of my Camino - I probably needed it to revive me).

After showering G_v looked at my heal blister.  It was purple which meant there was blood in the fluid.  G_v threaded the blister and bandaged it up.  She would be a wonderful blister nurse on this Camino.  I know I could have treated my blisters myself but it was much easier for someone else to bandage it up.  I owe G_v big time.

After showering and blister treating we talked with the Texan.  I have to admit he sounded like a changed man.  He acknowledge that the Camino was harder than he'd expected.  He liked the people and the food.  He said all this in a relatively calm, friendly voice with no show at all.  He even pronounced place names correctly.  It seems seeing people avoid him may have humbled him a bit and calmed him down.  He mentioned being Republican again and I told him that I prefer to leave all the politics and crap at home.  Surprisingly he said no problem and didn't mention it again.  We wouldn't see the Texan again but we did meet someone who did.  Apparently he had returned to his loud ways later on.  I think it may just be a facade he puts up for strangers.  It might be fine in Texas but it wasn't very appropriate anywhere else.

Sometime that afternoon I was getting something out of my pack and saw that, when I dropped my bag on the floor earlier, the shell J-M had given me had smacked against the metal bed frame and had broken in half.  What was it with me and shells this Camino?!? The third shell casualty on the Camino.  J-M was there (the last time we would see him) but I couldn't tell him about his shell - I felt so bad.

That night G_v cooked.  As I waited for the pasta to be done a French mother-daughter couple, having seen me struggle before (I think), offered me the leftovers from their omelette.  It was very tasty as was the pasta G_v made.  I was feeling much better.  I felt even better when G_v pulled out a tube of Principe cookies out of her shopping bag.  This was my first tube of Principes this trip (not including the four cookies I ate at the Madrid airport).  They tasted just like my first Camino.

I went to bed and crashed hard that night.  Today was too long for me but tomorrow would be shorter and I would feel much better.  The Principe cookies would guarantee that.

Pictures can be found in my 2013 Camino de Santiago Google Photos album.

Total Distance on Day 13: 32 km ( 19.88 Miles) Total Distance Walked: 294 km (182.68 Miles)

Approximate Track of the day's hike.

[Click on map for a larger version]

Camino 2013 - Day 12: Villamayor De Monjardín To Torres Del Rio

All the older pilgrims decided to get up before 6:30AM - a whole hour before the break of dawn.  I got my stuff together and went down to the kitchen area and ate a small breakfast of muffins, toast, and orange juice.

It was still dark when we left the albergue shortly after 7:00AM.  I didn't like leaving in the dark but I didn't like waiting around the albergue either.  Fortunately the trail was relatively easy to follow out of town.  I might have pulled out my little LED flashlight for some parts of the trail to make sure we didn't miss an arrow.

Villamayor de Monjardín and Azqueta in the early morning light.

The sun came up twenty minutes after we left and the clouds cleared out and we had a very nice day for walking.  We passed by mowed hay fields and fields of grapes nearly ready for picking.  Last Camino this stretch had felt hot and long.  This time we were walking a shorter stage and it wasn't nearly as bad.  On the way between Los Arcos and Sansol we were passed by a pilgrim on a custom unicycle.  It had handle bars and a larger than normal wheel.  It was pretty cool but you could see he was struggling in the stiff breeze we were walking in today.

We passed by a herdsman who practiced his English on me and others as we passed by this flock of sheep and goats.

Goats and sheep grazing along the Camino.

In Sansol I saw a sign the Camino was adapting to the larger volume of pilgrims.  When I went through here last time the albergue was closed and the town felt like a ghost town.  This time the albergue was reopened, there was a pharmacy, and a bar/store was full of pilgrims.  I would imagine the pilgrims are a good source of income for cash strapped Spain.

Not far from Sansol was our destination, Torres del Rio.  Torres del Rio was the first repeat stop on this Camino (i.e. someplace where I'd stopped on my 2011 Camino).  We skipped the municipal albergue this time.  It was a nice albergue but we wanted to change it up a bit.  We also skipped the new albergue figuring that would be where the older crowd would likely go.  We ended up in a private albergue (Casa Mari) run by a nice elderly lady.

I got ready to take my shower and I found a blister on my left heel.  I never got heal blisters last Camino and I assume it was because my heel was moving up and down in the the low top shoes I was wearing.  It hadn't popped so I decided not to do anything with it.  This would probably be a bad idea - it would get worse over the next few days.

We did our chores and, after putting our clothes in the washer, headed back to the municipal albergue to see who was there.  We sat at a table outside with M_t.  Other people we'd met while walking were there as well.  I_n, a landscape artist/architect from New York.  L_s, a young girl from Vienna, Austria who had started walking from Geneva, Switzerland.  L_a, a very funny Canadian lady walking with her sister.  Everyone had there own little Camino family with them.  That is another change we saw this time.  All the Camino families were small - two to four people - nothing like the ten to fifteen we had last time.

A cute resident of Torres del Rio.

We were sitting in the sun enjoying our drinks and conversation when in came the whirlwind.  He was the Texan.  He was the stereotypical loud, obnoxious American.  You could hear him coming from a distance.  During the time he sat with us we heard his whole life story.  We learned early on that he was a proud Republican.  We learned about him making and loosing fortunes.  We heard about how he live in Panama and Colombia but never learned to speak Spanish (he kept mispronouncing the names of towns and would refuse to listen when people tried to correct him).  We learned about his Colombian wife who married ... and remarried ... him for his money, not his looks.  We heard about how he walked ten miles everyday back home and how he could outwalk everyone at the table.  We learned how he was racing an Irishman even though he said the Camino wasn't a race.  We learned about his heart attacks and his new heart valve.  We learned how he convinced his heart valve manufacturer to sponsor his Camino.  We learned all this multiple times in the first hour.

When the Texan stated to repeat his story for the fourth or fifth time I'd had enough.  I interrupted him and started telling him his life story.  I nearly repeated it word for word.  When I stopped to take a breath someone else at the table jumped in and continued the story without missing a beat.  The Texan shut up.

Soon after that the group dispersed with a promise to get together for dinner later that night.  G_v and I went back to the albergue to take our laundry out of the washer.  When we got there the machine was empty.  We ran around looking for our clothes.  When we finally found them, they were hanging on a line.  We collected some of our dry stuff and G_v found one of her socks missing.  Socks are very important on the Camino.  She was a bit bummed when she couldn't find it.  We were on our bunks when the hospitalera came in and said she had dropped a sock when they were being hung and she was rewashing it since it fell in the dirt.  G_v was relieved.  We thanked the hospitalera for hanging our clothes for us.

We shared our room in the albergue with the Korean couple.  The Korean wife was still not very happy with her husband and was definitely not enjoying the Camino.  Despite this she had a smile on her face and she was nice to talk with.  She was proud of her grown children back home.

That evening we met at the municipal albergue and decided as a group to go to the restaurant connected to the new albergue in town.  Most of the group went to one large table while G_v, M_t, N_r, and I took a smaller table nearby.  We'd taken the smaller table to distance ourselves from the Texan who was with the larger group.  We were perusing the menu when everyone from the other table got up and left (the Texan, without making a sound apparently, had left a few minutes earlier unnoticed).  Later we would find that the waitress had been overwhelmed by the large group and had gotten snippy.  They decided not to put up with her snippyness and went to another restaurant in the town.  We ended up having a good enough meal - a middle of the pack meal I would say.

After dinner N_r told us she was going to leave the Frances and head to the Camino del Norte (M_t was leaving for home at the next big town because he had less time).  The Frances was turning out to be a bit too crowded for her and, since she had done the Camino just last year in 2012, it was too familiar and not new enough.  We agreed to meet each other in front of the Cathedral in Santiago de Compostela at noon on the 22nd of October.  Looking back using twenty-twenty hindsight, G_v and I should have gone with her.  It just didn't occur to me at the time.

Pictures can be found in my 2013 Camino de Santiago Google Photos album.

Total Distance on Day 12: 19 km ( 11.79 Miles) Total Distance Walked: 262 km (162.78 Miles)

Approximate Track of the day's hike.

[Click on map for a larger version]

Camino 2013 - Day 11: Ciraqui To Villamayor De Monjardín

We got up pretty early this morning when everyone started making noise outside our room.  I got my stuff together and went into the foyer of the albergue.  Out of the corner of my eye I saw someone who looked familiar.  It turned out to be K_t, a pilgrim I'd met in Omaha during some of my training hikes.  She had attended some of the Backwoods Camino Conversations.  I'd wondered if I would run into her somewhere on the Camino.  I said hi and asked how her Camino was going.  She was doing fine.  I wouldn't see her again until I neared the end of my Camino.

We stopped for breakfast in the next town of Lorca.  The weather was turning a bit drizzly this morning and it was nice to get out of the wet.

The next big town was Estella.  We ran into J_u here.  She had a harrowing story.  She'd walked a long day and had tried to stop at the town before Cirauqui (Mañeru).  That albergue turned out to be full.  She walked the five kilometers to Cirauqui just to find that albergue full as well.  Five more kilometers got her to Lorca where she'd gotten a bed (The Cirauqui hospitalera had called ahead and reserved a bed for her).  Her already long day had become a 35 - 40 kilometer day.  I can't imagine how demoralizing it must have been when you walk the extra five kilometers just to find that place full as well.

The Irache monastery.

After a sandwich in Ayegui, just outside of Estella, we walked past the wine fountain at Irache.  Last time I stopped to marvel at the spigot of free wine for the pilgrims.  Today I walked by with just a glance.  There were a few things like that this Camino.  Been there, seen it, done that.  

On the way to Villamayor de Monjardín.

We arrived at our destination for the day, Villamayor de Monjardín, and decided to stop at the newer of the two albergues in town.  It turned out that the older crowd stopped at the newer one and the younger crowd went to the older one.  G_v and I were almost the youngest people in our albergue.  There was a definite skew to the older crowd on this part of the Camino.  Later on there would be a better mix of age groups I think.

The albergue started to fill up fast.  In our room on the third floor we ran into a French man.  I have meet many french people on the Camino.  All of them have been very nice people.  I liked every one ... until I met this man.  He spoke mostly to G_v since she spoke French but it turned out he was mostly complaining about how crowded it was and I believe he mentioned something about how all the Americans, or at least the English speakers, were ruining the Camino.  He did this while lying on his bed in his underwear.  I wrote him off pretty quickly but I have to admit he was on to something.  There were a lot more English speakers on the Camino than I remembered.  Most of them were from America, Canada, Australia, or New Zealand.

We spent some of the afternoon resting and eating at the bar.  G_v cooked dinner (Pasta Carbonara if I remember right).  We went back up to the bar which had a nice patio area next to a large handball court.  I noticed packs and sleeping bags along the back of the court.  Turns out both albergues filled up here as well and people were preparing to sleep outside for the night.  People who had gotten in the albergues were loaning their sleeping bags to people who hadn't gotten in. The albergues were letting them use the showers.  (It was a cold night but I later heard that it hadn't been that bad - party central apparently.)

The sun setting on the Villamayor de Monjardín church tower.

When the sun went down it started getting cold.  I ordered my first cola cao.  Cola cao is a hot chocolate mix similar to nesquick served with hot milk.  I usually don't like hot liquids (not a coffee or tea drinker) but it tasted good on this cold evening.  We sat talking to N_r, M_t, and other pilgrims we met there.  We shared Camino tips and stories with the first timers.

That evening I was pulling something out of my locker when I saw something slip out and fall to the floor.  It was my shell necklace.  The shell shattered on impact.  I felt so bad.  I picked up the largest pieces and put them in my bag.  I knew where they had to go (I'll tell you where on day 30).  My mood was a bit down after that.  This was the second shell I'd broken in relation to this Camino (I talked about the first here).

In Villamayor de Monjardín we met a couple of Korean pilgrims who now lived in San Francisco.  He turned out to be a priest though I wouldn't know this for awhile.  His wife was walking the Camino for him.  She let us know in no uncertain terms that walking the Camino was his idea and not hers.  She was doing it for him ... reluctantly.  While he was prepared for the Camino she had packed makeup (in glass jars even!) and put her hair up in curlers every night.  Her husband carried all this extra weight - her price for him making her come along I think.  We would run into them all along the Camino and the change we would see was remarkable.  More on the change in later posts.

One thing I noticed early on was the number of screens you saw in the albergues each night.  The Korean couple carried two iPads and iPods (they listened to inspirational music as they walked).  I have to admit that the number of screens was a bit disconcerting. When I travel I like to unplug.  To me a pilgrimage should be different and separate from your everyday life.  These electronic devices stop us from leaving our everyday lives.   It's also hard to meet people when you don't want to interrupt the movie or television show they are watching on their iPad.  This would decrease farther down the Camino but it never went away altogether.

This had been the second stage where all the albergues had been "completo" (i.e. full).  I was becoming concerned that the Camino Frances would become a race for beds.  The crowd, and their effect on the Camino, was starting to wear on me a little bit ... and it'd been only two days on the Camino Frances.  Fortunately this would change soon.

Pictures can be found in my 2013 Camino de Santiago Google Photos album.

Total Distance on Day 11: 23 km ( 14.29 Miles) Total Distance Walked: 243 km (150.99 Miles)

Approximate Track of the day's hike.

[Click on map for a larger version]

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

I hope everyone, everywhere, has a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Camino 2013 - Day 10: Tiebas To CirauKing and Queen - the giants of the Fiesta.qui

Despite having eaten crap for dinner the night before I felt pretty good as we left Tiebas.  This would be our last day on the Aragones before we rejoined the Camino Frances (the Camino I walked in 2011).

A view past a marker on the way out of town.

We passed through a town or two before arriving in Eunate.  Saint Mary of Eunate is a 12th century church that is often a side trip for those walking the Camino Frances.  The  octagonal church is impressive from the outside.  Unfortunately we were there on Monday, the one day that it is closed.  There is no town associated with the church but there is an albergue next to the church that was a favorite of many pilgrims.  Unfortunately it was closed earlier this year.  Hopefully someone will take the initiative and reopen the albergue.   We stopped and rested here.  I changed the rubber tips of my walking poles while I rested - I wore through almost three pairs of tips this Camino.

12th century Church of Santa Maria de Eunate.

After Eunate the Aragones ends and joins the Camino Frances at the town of Obanos.  Joining the Frances was like merging onto a super highway from a country farm road.  The last nine days on the Aragones you could walk all day and not see another pilgrim until you reached an albergue.  On the Frances you were always within sight of other pilgrims.  It was a little disconcerting.

Go!

In 2011 there were a lot of pilgrims walking the Frances.  You were always within sight of other pilgrims.  This year, though, it was different.  The distance between pilgrims was shorter.  In 2011 183,504 pilgrims received a compostela (a completion certificate) in Santiago de Compostela.  2013 isn't over yet but, sometime in October, a Canadian became the 200,000th pilgrim this year to receive a compostela.  It felt much more crowded as we walked to the next big town of Puente La Reina.

In Puente la Reina we stopped at a grocery store to stock up on food and supplies and we had some lunch in a cafe.  This is one of the things that changed for me this Camino.  In 2011 I rarely stopped to eat while I was walking.  I would start walking and I wouldn't think about food, or stopping, until I arrived at my destination for the day.  This Camino I stopped a lot more, for breakfast and, sometimes, lunch before getting to our destination.  I blame this on G_v - She was often the reason we stopped -  but I have to admit that I soon looked forward to stopping and farther on I was often the reason we stopped.  I liked eating breakfast.

After Puente la Reina there is a hill that I'd been dreading all day.  It had been tough the 2011.  It was tough in 2013 too but, with all the hill climbing I'd done on the Aragones, it wasn't nearly as bad as I remembered.  On the way up some young guy tried to give G_v and I pointers on how to properly climb the steep path.  We both ignored the young pup.  It felt good when I reached the top of the hill and saw the young guy resting, and panting, in the shade.  I stopped briefly, took a deep breath, and walked on leaving the young whipper snapper panting in my dust.  The fact we got to the albergue before he did, and in better shape, was also satisfying.

We stopped in the town of Cirauqui.  I remember this town as being a tiny little town with steep streets but it turned out to be much bigger than I remembered.  That happened a lot this time along the Camino.  Places were mostly larger than I remember.  Some stretches were easier that I remembered ... others were harder.  Things were not in the same order that I remembered.  Others were right where I remembered.  Memory plays odd tricks.

Despite having stopped for a relatively long time in Puente La Reina, we ended up being the second and third to arrive at the one albergue in town.  The first person, a young man from Denmark, (E_k), had stopped early because of knee issues he was having.  G_v and I turned out to be fast walkers and the rest of the pilgrims we would encounter ... well, they were slower than I remembered.  Having said this the albergue was full by 3:30PM (about two hours after we'd arrived).

The albergue was a nice place.  The hospitalera was an artist and the albergue was decorated with her paintings and sculptures.  We ended up in a six person room with E_k, N_r, M_t, and another guy I don't remember.  E_k turned out to be quite the character.  He was young and thought himself wise and invincible.  He knew everything he needed to know about walking the Camino.  He expressed his wisdom loudly.  He was a nice kid ... but he was a bit obnoxious and over eager at times.

Cirauqui was in the middle of fiesta as well.  The small central square had a stage setup where either a DJ or a live band were playing music.  The square was full of old women singing and dancing.  The old men were all in a bar that overlooked the square.  We watched, and laughed with, the women line dancing to a Spanish version of Achy Breaky Heart.  They all appeared to be having an awesome time.

Dancing in red and white - Fiesta time in Cirauqui.

We ate a meal prepared by our hospitalera.  She turned out to be a very nice lady.  When the albergue filled up she got on the phone with other albergues in the next time to see if there were beds to be had.  She must of liked us as well as she let us all know what was going on and how other people were rude (An Aussie and a Kiwi had reserved for dinner but had not shown up.  The hospitalera was mad because she had turned people away.)  She was very nice to us even preparing vegetarian options for N_r and M_t.  Delicious food as well.

After dinner we went back out to the fiesta and enjoyed the party.  I had my first churros (I know - should have tried them years ago.  They were okay.).  Two giant figures - King and Queen I would guess - were brought it and they joined the dance.  This would be the last fiesta we would see along the Camino.  Sadly, we would miss a few by a day or three.

King and Queen - the giants of the Fiesta.

The party in Cirauqui continued until at least 4:00AM but I went to bed earlier than that with the help of earplugs.  This day felt pretty easy even if it felt a bit crowded.  I hoped the crowded feeling wouldn't last the remainder of my Camino.  Time would tell.

Pictures can be found in my 2013 Camino de Santiago Google Photos album.

Total Distance on Day 10: 25 km ( 15.53 Miles) Total Distance Walked: 220 km (136.70 Miles)

Approximate Track of the day's hike.

[Click on map for a larger version]

Camino 2013 : Day 9: Izco To Tiebas

The winds were blowing, the temperature dropped, and the skies looked ominous when we left Izco.  We'd had little or no rain since day three and I really thought our luck had run out.  There was some drizzle this day but fortunately the clouds blew by without much rain falling.

Walking into the storm that never was.  (That's G_V ahead of me.)

Our breakfast stop for today was in Monreal.  Our original itinerary, before we shortened the stage before Sangüesa, would have had us spending the night in Monreal.  It was a nice enough town and breakfast was good.  We got a little lost on our way out thinking the Camino passed by the church.  It did detour by the church but we had to backtrack a little to find the way the out of town.

The church in Monreal.

For the first time we started passing fields of sunflowers.  A few weeks earlier and it would have been gorgeous.  Unfortunately they were all past their prime and the field of downturned flowers seem a bit sad as they awaited harvesting.

Sad sunflowers.

We passed through a few little towns along the way but we only stopped for brief rest stops to eat snacks we'd packed and to drink some water.

Between the towns the trail went up and down.  It was like hiking a rollercoaster.  I noticed a pain in my left knee.  I think sometime the day before I'd over extended the knee.  I was a bit worried about this and took it easy.  Having trekking poles helped a lot to reduce the stress on my knees.  My concern was unfounded as the pain in my knee would last three or four days before going away completely.

From the trail you could see a big city in the distance.  It was Pamplona.  One alternative route of the Aragones has you turning and going to Pamplona.  We'd already been to Pamplona so we continued on to our destination of Tiebas.

Tiebas was another small town.  There was an albergue, a church, and a bar/restaurant.  After doing our chores we walked up to the bar to get some lunch.  That's when we discovered that it was festival time in Tiebas too.  That night there was a concert and the eating, drinking, and dancing would last until at least 4:00AM.

The highlight of Tiebas were the ruins of a 13th century castle at one end of the town.  We toured it and took some pictures of the ruins.  The ruins were pretty cool and, reading the descriptions on the plaques, you could imagine what it looked like in its day.

13th Century castle-palace in Tiebas.

That night G_v made soup for herself.  I was in a weird food mood.  Nothing sounded good and the idea of fighting  the crowds at the bar - party central - was not appealing to me either.  I ended up eating a vending machine meal of a croissant and granola bars (this would turn out to be my only 'bad' meal along the way - I would eat much better along the way).  During our dinner we talked with N_r and M_t.  We kind of hit it off.  They are a nice couple.  J-M and J_u were also there and would end up going to the festivities and, perhaps, overindulging a bit too much.

This would be our last night on the Camino Aragones.  Tomorrow we would be joining the Camino Frances.  Thinking back, I don't think I was looking forward to the Frances.  I liked the newness of the Aragones.  There was always that doubt: Would I like the Frances as much as I did the last time or would it all feel 'been there, done that'?  Tomorrow I would find out.

Pictures can be found in my 2013 Camino de Santiago Google Photos album.

Total Distance on Day 9: 23 km ( 14.29 Miles) Total Distance Walked: 195 km (121.17 Miles)

Approximate Track of the day's hike.

[Click on map for a larger version]

Camino 2013 : Day 8: Undués de Lerda To Izco

We left Undués de Lerda early and watched our long shadows appear on the road ahead of us as the sun rose behind us.  The rising sun turned the mowed hay fields gold.  The spring has greens but the fall's primary color is a rich golden brown.

Bales of golden hay were seen along the entire length of the Camino.

(I sneezed after taking this picture ... hay fever perhaps?)

We reached Sangüesa at 10:00AM.  Everyone was wearing the white and red of festival.  The Camino passes by the local bull ring.  A poster on the ring wall told us we'd missed the running of the bulls by just an hour (darn it!).  (A couple pilgrims we would meet in Izco told us they had left their albergue at 9:00AM and had been told by a police officer to go back in - two minutes later the bulls stampeded past the albergue door.  They almost had participated unwittingly themselves!)  Parts of the streets we walked through were lined with temporary fencing to keep the bulls out of homes and businesses.  There were also empty bottles in the street ... the remains of the celebration the night before.

Fiesta!!!

Sangüesa looked like a really nice city.  It would have been nice to have stopped and visited the churches and celebrated fiesta with the city but not this time.

Church of Santa Maria la Real.

We stopped in a cafe and had some breakfast before we headed out of the city.  The maps we saw implied there were four towns along the stretch of Camino between Sangüesa and Izco, our destination.  Towns are nice because they offer a place to rest, eat, and drink.  More importantly they break up long walking days, mark progress. and provide a change of scenery.  It turns out the maps were wrong.  There are four towns but the Camino does not go through any of them.  This made for a long uninterrupted stretch of walking ... and it was also fairly hot.

Snails munched on the grass along the side of the road.

The heat and dust felt unending.  The sun was hot enough to melt the chocolate bar in my pack ... I licked the chocolate off the wrapper and got most of it in my mouth.  The rest was, according to G_v, all over my chin (sadly she has proof - the picture is on Facebook in my Camino 2013 album).

This stretch of Camino crosses two altos (heights or ridges) - Alto de Tibar and Alto de Loiti.  Neither of them are terribly high but on a hot day they seemed high enough.  There was little shade along the Camino and the only relief we had was a tunnel below a highway.  The shade and the breeze that blew through the tunnel felt like heaven.  Sadly we had to keep going if we wanted to get to Izco.

There were insects along the way including praying mantis and grasshoppers

with electric blue wings who wouldn't stand still for a picture

My walking this day was in spurts.  I would walk fifty meters or so and then I would stop to pick raspberries.  Another fifty meters or so and another stop and more raspberries.   The raspberry bushes lined the road most of the way to Izco.  They slowed me down and helped pace myself on this particularly long walking day.  I'm not sure I would have made it without them.

Izco turned out to be another tiny town with a single albergue/bar/store.  The owner was a nice lady.  She showed us to the single room full of bunk beds, the washing facilities (a washing machine! - Clean clothes! I discovered my t-shirt missing here), and a kitchen for the pilgrims.  We went through the store and bought ingredients for dinner and walking food for the next day.  I downed another liter and a half bottle of water and ate an ice cream to revive me before I did my chores.

That night G_v made dinner (pasta ... a Camino staple ... and very good).  We ate dinner with J-M, J_u and a young couple from the netherlands (N_r and M_t).  R_h and N_c were not there because they'd done a short day to Sangüesa to see the bullfighting (They were horrified by the violence and ended up leaving the bull ring before it was over).  We would see them farther down the Camino.

The pilgrim from Barcelona and his Russian Ukrainian girlfriend showed up at 10:00PM - the latest I've ever seen a pilgrim arrive.  Thank you ear plugs - I slept through them doing their chores before they finally went to bed.

Pictures can be found in my 2013 Camino de Santiago Google Photos album.

Total Distance on Day 8: 29 km ( 18.02 Miles) Total Distance Walked: 172 km (106.88 Miles)

Approximate Track of the day's hike.

[Click on map for a larger version]

Camino 2013 : Day 7: Artieda To Undués de Lerda

We left Artieda going the wrong way.  We left the town the same way as we'd arrived not knowing that there was another road.  After walking along the road for a short while (fifteen minutes maybe) we stopped, turned around and started heading back, and then stopped again.  We looked around and Gv saw a pilgrim.  It turned out to be J-M and we discovered that both ways out of town met a little ways ahead.

Reflections on the reservoir. 

The Camino approaches a reservoir formed by a dam on the Aragon river.  There were signs all over the place protesting the expansion of the reservoir.  As I walked along the reservoir, all natural sounds drowned out by the noise of heavy machinery clearing trees and, I presume, preparing for the expansion of the reservoir, I could see that the Camino would be affected.  The trail along the reservoir would be totally submerged.  Along with the trail, several old hermitages, churches, and other historically significant sites would also be flooded and lost.  I walked through, and took pictures of, one of these hermitages, La Ermita de San Juan Bautista.

San Juan Bautista Hermitage.

The next albergue you pass is located in the hamlet of Ruesta.  The town, believed to be in harm's way by the flooding, is nearly abandoned.  There is some question if this town truly will be submerged.  It seemed quite high above the current reservoir level and is on a road that I believe will not be closed.  We stopped at the albergue to see if we could get some breakfast but we left empty handed when we found it closed for cleaning.  There was a small store open but it had a limited selection.  The highlight of Ruesta, besides the ruins there, were the cute kittens playing.

The ruins of Ruesta.

After Ruesta we approached one of the toughest parts of the Camino so far.  The trail turned up and followed a wide dirt and gravel road up to a ridge.  The road went up and up without any leveling off.  The approximate length of this hill is five kilometers (3.1 miles) but it feels like it goes on forever.  I think this trail climbs higher than the mountain.  You would think you were reaching the top and it would turn out to be a turn in the road and the road just kept going up.  My reaction when I turned a corner and saw that it kept going gave the mountain it's informal name: Mount Oh Man!!!  I'm not sure I would have made it without the wild raspberries along the road that kept me going.

At the top of Mount Oh Man!!! looking down on Undués de Lerda.

At the top of Mount Oh Man!!! we had a great view of the mountains with the town of Undués de Lerda in the distance perched up on a hill.  Now, there were two ways they could have routed the Camino to get from here to there.  They could have gone along the ridge and followed a road down to the town or they could take the Roman road.  The Camino, naturally, follows the Roman road.  Roman roads are kind of amazing.  They are usually paved in stone - the fact that any of the paving still remains after such a long time is impressive.  While the Romans knew how to make great roads, they were terrible at choosing routes.  This particular Roman road took you down into a ravine below the level of the town before climbing back up into the town.  As I was huffing and puffing up the hill into the town all I could think was "F-ing Romans!"

We stopped at the town's one bar and bought some sandwiches for lunch.  This was also where you checked into the albergue.  The albergue in Undués de Lerda is new and it was pretty nice.  There were a few things not quite finished yet but it had all of the comforts.  I ended up with my first top bunk here.  We did our chores and washed clothes.  We hung our clothes on a drying rack and, chasing the sun, moved the rack to a nearby square.

Downtown Undués de Lerda.

This square was the place to be the rest of the afternoon.  There wasn't much in the town besides the albergue and a bar/restaurant/store (similar to Santa Cilia and Artieda).  Our little Camino family gathered here and lounged around in the sun: J-M, R_h and N_c, J_u, along with a few Spaniards and a German who we'd met along the way.

Food this day was a communal meal in the one bar/restaurant.  I had my first pork cheek for dinner.  It was pretty good ... like pot roast and pulled easily off the bone.  Another exceptional meal.

Sunset from the Albergue window.

Somewhere in this town one of my Icebreaker merino t-shirts decided it'd had enough and didn't make it into my pack. I discovered this at the next town.  This was the first and only thing I have ever lost on the Camino.  I'd had three t-shirts to walk in and one to sleep in.  From this point on I would have to sleep in and wear all three shirts - not a major deal really.  Three shirts turned out to be just fine.  It's just the idea of losing a $50 shirt ... rubbed me the wrong way.

After the hard day before, we'd shortened this day by 11 km (6.84 miles).  I'm glad we did that since Mount Oh Man!!! had sucked a lot out of me.  Not sure I would have made another 11 km.  It's unfortunate, though, since we ended up missing something interesting in the next town.

Pictures can be found in my 2013 Camino de Santiago Google Photos album.

Total Distance on Day 7: 21 km (13.05 Miles) Total Distance Walked: 143 km (88.86 Miles)

Approximate Track of the day's hike.

[Click on map for a larger version]

Camino 2013 - Day 6: Santa Cilia To Artieda

There are fewer stage choices on the Aragones.  Availability of, and distance between, albergues dictate where you are going to stay each night.  There is one section though that gives you a choice.  There are two ways to go once you leave Jaca.  You can go Jaca - Arres - Ruesta- Sangüesa or you can go Jaca - Santa Cilia - Artieda - Sangüesa.  Since we went to the monastery we ended up in Santa Cilia so our next stop would be Artieda.

A bend in the Aragon river.

The day was a long day but there was a highlight early on.  Just before Puente la Reina de Jaca the Camino passes through a cairn field.  I have seem cairns before, they are a common way to mark trails, but I have never seen this quantity of cairns in one place.  The fact that most of the rock in the area was rounded river rock made the cairns look even cooler.  There was a fairytale quality to the place.  Pictures do the place little justice so here is a short nine second video of the field.

Cairn field along the Camino.

At Puente la Reina de Jaca we stopped at a store to buy food (there was no store in Santa Cilia) and we stocked up on walking food and something to eat for lunch.  I waited at the store briefly for the baguette to come out of the oven.  The hot bread was then lashed to the top of my pack.

Can you see the arrow pointing the way?

After leaving the town the Camino follows a farm road.  This part of the Aragones reminded me a lot of the meseta of 2011.  It was sunny and the  trail was straight and flat.  It turned out to be tough too.  It wasn't hot but I'm pretty sure I wasn't drinking enough water.   Most of the path was lined with harvested fields - mostly hay - but there were places with weathered grey formations that made it look like the surface of the moon.

A late season poppy brightens up a harvested field.

The one thing that saved me were the wild raspberries growing along the road.  The raspberry bushes reminded me of the ones I picked berries off of when I was a little boy.  This time of year the bushes were full of ripe purple berries.  The added water and sugar from the berries are probably what kept me going on the Aragones.

Harvested farm fields with the Pyrenees mountains as a backdrop.

Despite the raspberries, by the time I got to Artieda I was pooped!  Like many towns along the Aragones and the Camino in general, Artieda was built on the top of a hill.  That last little bit that took us up the steep road to the village sapped me.  The town, like Santa Cilia, has only one albergue.  The albergue also acts as the village's one bar, cafe, restaurant, and store.  We did our chores and then sat outside the albergue with the food we'd bought in Puente la Reina de Jaca.  I augmented that with an ice cream and a liter and a half (1.6 quarts) of water.  The water bottle was emptied in about fifteen minutes.  I obviously didn't drink enough water that day and that bottle helped bring me back to life.

The reservoir in the distance as seen from Artieda.  The Camino would pass it the next day.

The afternoon was spent the same way we did every afternoon so far.  We walked around the town which, being perched on a hill, offered some really nice views including views of the reservoir made from the dammed Aragon river.  We laughed at the exercise machines - we didn't need any more exercise thank you very much.  J-M who showed up after us found a guy to unlock the neighboring church so we toured it as well.

The evening meal was a communal meal served by the albergue owners.  The owners were very nice people (we'd asked the owner if they had a washer and he said "Yes but", with a mischievous smile he added "it is manually operated").  The meal was, again, delicious.

At this point a sort of Camino family was forming.  J-M, R_h and N_c, and a German woman name J_u.  There were also a group of Spanish ladies and a young man from Barcelona and his girlfriend, a Russian Ukrainian now living in Barcelona who we would see over the next few day.

This had been the longest stage so far and, frankly, I hadn't handled it very well at all.  I was exhausted when I got to Artieda.  The next day we were planning to walk to Sangüesa which would have been 30 km (18.64 miles).  G_v and I talked about this and decided to shorten the stage and stop in Undués de Lerda  instead to give me time to recuperate.  I wasn't happy about this, it took us a half day off our itinerary, but it was a sound decision at the time.  We would look for a way to catch up to our itinerary later on.

Pictures can be found in my 2013 Camino de Santiago Google Photos album.

Total Distance on Day 6: 27 km (16.78 Miles) Total Distance Walked: 122 km (75.81 Miles)

Approximate Track of the day's hike.

[Click on map for a larger version]