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Hey Everyone,
Thanks for all the messages and comments on my blog and on the photos´on FB. I truly appreciate them all. It makes me feel closer to home.

After I left you last time, I was in Puenta La Reina. A large town or small city. I was staying in an Albergue that didn´t really have any charm to it. It was in the basement of a hotel. I found out later that there were 2 more there. One was an ancient one in the middle of the city and one was a brand new "chain" albergue just on the other side. I would have preferred to stay in the ancient one of course.

As it turned out, it was good to stay where I was because I ended up meeting a nice young man, Brendon, from LA. So had dinner with him and chatted a bit and then went to bed. Nothing too exciting here.

Next morning it was raining pretty hard. It made the city seem dismal and walking along the main street felt like I was in an old movie. It was damp and chilly but I was quite happy that it was raining. My nose was SO burnt, it was good to be out of the sun for a day or 2. I had my poncho on and tried to keep my arms inside the poncho so they would stay dry. But using my sticks made it a bit difficult to do it. I finally got the hang of it, tho. As I walked out of the city on a path that went along a red pepper farm, my pants were getting more and more wet and even tho I was covered from the knees up, the wet was creeping up my legs so I decided to remove the bottoms of my pants and walk in my shorts. The poncho was sticking to my legs, but at least the top part of my shorts were staying dry.

I am walking pretty slowly, so lots of people are passing me by as I go along... always with a "Buen Camino" and a smile. At one point, I noticed that the land was turning red. Then when I turned a corner, there was a huge hill and the trail was red mud! The mud was slick and stuck to the boots as I walked up. There were 2 older french men in front of me and we were all laughing and huffing and puffing as we struggled thru the mud! There was a girl who was wearing sandals and she just took them off and walked in her bare feet. By the time we got to the top, which took about a half hour or 45 minutes, we were all covered in mud! But we were all laughing about it and having fun. :o)

Now we are entering wine country and the trail started going alongside gravevines, olive orchards and vineyards. The vines are all just covered with ripe, lush bunches of grapes! So tempting to try them, but I didn´t. I thought that if every Peregrino tried one grape, that would be 100,000 grapes less for the wineries which means less wine for all to drink! I was walking by myself most of this morning. As I walked, I was singing some Snatum Kaur and Deva Premal mantras. At first I was singing them under my breath and when people passed me, cuz they always do...most are in a big hurry, it seems, I would stop singing until they were past ear shot. But after a while, I started singing more loudly and as people passed I would keep singing so they could hear! I think they thought I was a little crazy. haha!

At one point, I came around a corner and as I looked up I saw the town of Cirauqui in the distance. A beautiful little midieval town built on a hill. I fell in love with it the minute I saw it and decided I would stay there for the night, even tho it wasn´t even noon yet! As I got closer to it, I met up with 3 Swedish women and we had to walk thru more red mud as we approached the city. We all stopped at a little cafe for a cafe con laitche and a tortilla (which is basically an egg sandwhich) but man, it was sooo good!

When we were finished, we said good bye to each other and as I walked, there was a car that was driving around anouncing some sort of Fiesta that night. Of course that just made my conviction to stay even stronger! ha ha! So I wound my way up to the Albergue which was at the very top of the city across from the church. There was a sign on the door that said it opened at 13:00. It was only 11:30, so I thought maybe I should go ahead to the next town called Lorca. I started to walk down and out of the town, but then something inside me made me turn around and go back up. I sat on the front step of the Albergue trying to stay out of the rain. Then from around the corner, this woman shows up and it is none other than Linda, the woman from Chicago and Vancouver who I had met in Ugerta but had passed me 2 days earlier! We were quite happy to see each other and she decided that she was going to stay here too.

Finally, Agnoit, the woman who owns and runs the Albergue, opened the door for us and let us in. This place was so charming and fun. She is a very creative woman and had her artwork all over, plus beautiful tiles everywhere and the bedroom she gave us slept 6 in really nice, warm, comfortable bunk beds. She told us that that day was Children´s day Fiesta and that at 5:30, there was going to be some bulls running in the streets! OMG! I was soooo excited and so was Linda. We both decided to walk around the town a bit while we waited. We saw them setting everything up for the running of the bulls. They have to put barriers along the streets so the bulls stay on the designated streets that they´re supposed to run on. Well, because it rained so hard, they couldn´t run the bulls after all because the streets were too slippery. It was disappointing to say the least. We heard someone say that they would run tomorrow, so both Linda and I asked Agnoit if we could stay another night at her Albergue. She thought we were crazy to want to stay and they don´t normally let people stay more than one night, but she allowed us to because we wanted to see the bulls so badly. We had a wonderful dinner that night in their bodega. They have it set up really nicely with 3 dining areas. It´s in the basement, stone walls and warm. Very nice ambience. We drank a lot of wine! It was wine from the region and sooo good!

After dinner we went to bed, but heard the town partying until 5:30 am!! OMG, I was so tired the next day...luckily we didn´t have to walk. But we did have to be up and out of the albergue by 8 so she could do her cleaning and getting ready for the day. Linda and I walked back to the town before Cirauqui and meandered around there for a bit, did some grocery shopping and walked back. We just hung around the albergue til it opened then went in to do laundry, shower, etc. Once we had all that out of the way, we walked around the town and saw that the whole town was in the plaza having food and wine. So we went back to the albergue and got a litre of wine and a bowl of FRESH olives...omg they were good! And we sat and watched a comedian on the stage. I didn´t understand what he said, but he was sooo funny. I haven´t laughed that hard in a long time! It turns out that they couldn´t run the bulls that night either...so no bulls for us. Oh well. We had dinner and then a nice quiet night.

Got up this morning and walked about 12 km to Villatortella which is where I am now. Not as many pilgrims today. This place is amazing! The owner is a very, very good massage therapist. He massaged my legs and my shin splint is feeling better. I was starting to swell in my legs and it´s pretty much gone now. They have 3 cats and a cute 9 month old great Dane named Torre. They play Snatum Kaur and Deva Premal music. Very healing place. They have a terrace outside that has a whole bunch of hammocks.

More pics. http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=313078&id=623980696&l=244bc84b5a

Hope everyone is doing well!
Love Jackie

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