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Published: September 27th 2015
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29 August 2015, Saturday. Stage 6
GPS: 11.78 miles, 4.36 hours moving and 7 hours total time for day.
Fitbit: 14.12 miles, 32,317 steps and 125 stairs.
Another warm day. We leave Hospederia Chapitel early after our breakfast and are off in the cool of the morning. The day looked ominous with a 250 meter climb. From the hotel, we walk past the church through town and on up into the countryside. We skirt the mountain instead of going over the top to save another 100 meters of climbing.
Shortly after leaving Estelle we pass an old monastery which is no longer in use. But across the path is the Bodegas Irache with its famous wine and water fountain. We get in the line of pilgrims for a sip of wine (it is really much to early in the morning) and a photo of the fountain. But we had to have one photo of Blondie at the fountains.
We pass through dry fields of grain stubble and stacks of hay and straw line the camino. I watch the butterflies in the clover and alfalfa blossoms along the path and the less frequent snails. As we get
higher it gets drier so less snailsThe village of Azqueta has a nice colorful sign as you enter it. After our ten kilometers of walking we come to our first stop at Villamayor de Monjardin on a mountain peak. There is an old moorish fountain just before the town. Now with rather stagnant water but a spring feeds it.. We stop for a tonic water and a bathroom in the plaza and refill the water bottles. By now the day has gotten hot.
Our day of slogging down the dusty path out of Villamayor de Monjardin is interrupted by of all things, my cell phone ringing. I answer to find Inigo on the phone. He has good news. My wayward bag has arrived at Pamplona airport and he will go pick it up. It has been 12 days since I last saw it at check in on 17 August in Raleigh Durham. For the next 15 minutes we discuss where we are, where we will be, how to get the bag to me and what he had hoped to do this weekend. Finally he decides the optimal plan is for him to get the bag and drive to 70
Wine and Blondie
Bodegas Irache wine fountain kilometer to Los Arcos and leave it where we will be tonight at La Casa de Mi Abuela. I cannot thank him enough for interrupting his plans to go to the country to his parents for the weekend and do this. But at last I will have shoes, hiking poles, shirts, razor and pants.
My day goes by much better as it get hotter. We have many miles of farm fields on dry dusty roads when around a corn field we see an oasis setup with tents and tables out in the middle of nowhere. He has ice, and tonica so we are in heaven. We eat some of the bread, meat and cheese we had bought coming out of Estelle. We learn from this man that it is 95 degrees now and yesterday was 104. No wonder we think it is HOT!
Los Arcos is a dying town with narrow streets. Now the Camino is a major source of income. Following the Camino arrows provide good directions to La Casa de Mi Abuela at the center of town where the Camino makes a right hand turn. It really is the ladies grandmothers house. She tells us what
all it was used for before she converted it for pilgrims. There was a bakery, shops on the ground floor and many other services. We are on the tippy top floor and she insists on carrying one of our NOW TWO big bags up the 5 flights of stairs to our room; from now bags to three!
A poster advertises a paella for minimum of two. So our host calls and makes a reservation for us at 7 PM. We find the restaurant and order a jar of sangria to go with the paella. We have since learned it was almost all rice and not very good as well as way over priced. So we will remember to not follow the adds at the hostels anymore but go by what the other pilgrims have found is a good deal. We walk down the street for a peak in the cathedral before retiring for the night. Many of the pilgrims we have been walking with are also at this hostel.
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