Advertisement
Published: June 10th 2014
Edit Blog Post
June 7
Well - another night - no sleep. Tanya and I were in bunks 171 & 172 - the last two on the first floor and as it turns out the ones right beside the women's showers and toilettes. We were excited to see we were with a middle age Dutch couple - very quiet. We were even more excited to see Angus was on another floor and Damian was at the opposite end of the floor. We fell asleep right away - it was short lived. The sound of flip flops sclerching on the stoned floor started around 11pm - followed by the closing of the door and flushing of the toilettes - with 172 people -1/2 women -it was like a non stop toilette symphony. At about 4:30 am the keeners started to grab their gear and tiptoe out of their bunk rooms and you guessed it repack and organize just outside the washrooms -Albergues 2 - sleep 0. Tanya and I gave up and started to repack and get ready to leave at about 6 am.
Today was more climbing and descending - not as extreme as yesterday - but very
hard on the feet. We went from 950m and roller coastered down to 500m. This stage initially took us down round stoned ridges and across to fertile plains - then to natural paths through shaded woodlands - finally a beautiful vista that was not perilous - we hit Alto de Erro at 810m. From Alto we descended to Zubiri at 510m. The 5km descent was very steep and consisted mostly of exposed rock - very slippery - we serpentined most of the way down - poor Tanya still with a very sore knee. What else can this Camino throw at us?
By the time we got to Zubiri we were exhausted and hot - the temperatures and humidity soared. We went to the Municipal Pilgrims Albergue got our pilgrims passport stamped and hunted for a b & b - we were determined to get sleep tonight and the Albergue looked crowded and hot. We found a nice quiet little place off the crowded Main Street - 30€. We went to the local little bar ( note almost all restaurants are bars) Tanya talked the waitress and chef to serve us a variety of local favourites
- baguette with olive oil, olives, hot peppers and anchovies & white been soup & fresh salad with tuna & cod stuffed red peppers with fries - we ate it all - I washed mine down with a beer (or two).
By eight we were off to our b & b - looking forward to our first good nights sleep..
Piss off of the day - many people told us this was a flat stage - we are in trouble if it is
Tip of the day - take care of your feet / by now 80% of us have issues / blisters & hot spots or worse
Blessing of the day - starting to realize that most obstacles can be overcome - especially if there are no escape routes - we walked part of the way with Andrew (he called himself the Scottish hobbit) - he walked this whole stage on crutches.
Funny event of the day - Tanya and I have received many stern looks especially from older Spanish women - it appears many people think I am a dirty old man travelling
with a much younger wife/girlfriend in sin - Tanya and I now go out of our way to introduce ourselves as hija y papa - odd that I don't get the same glare from my fellow male pilgrims.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.059s; Tpl: 0.016s; cc: 14; qc: 28; dbt: 0.0219s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Dean Wilson
non-member comment
I knew it
So jealous. Scenery appears beautiful, and the experience is clearly a memory maker. I knew bidets were for for taking care of your feet ;-)