A Nice Day for a Walk

Thursday, October 15 – Day 36

Last night was wonderful. 3 people in a huge room, and no one snored. I slept mostly well. I was a little bit too cold because there was no heat. It was fine, though.

Tracy and I got on our way at 8:30 ish. Prunie left before us. Tracy wanted to go 31k today, but at the pace we were going I didn’t think it would work. We walked and talked for a while, and then two people came up behind us. It was Adam and Angie! They walked with us into the next town where we stopped at a place to eat breakfast.

The guy didn’t have any tortilla, so we waited until his wife got there and cooked some. I had some orange juice, tortilla, and a muffin for 4.30 E. It took entirely too long. At breakfast we met Amanda from Sweden and Nick from London.

It was very different walking with someone for 31k, and I could tell it was going to be a very long day.

It was a very cold morning, but thankfully it did warm up. I even took my jacket off.

We’re still trying to figure out this whole Spain thing and how it works. Everything looks different, so I don’t know what to look for. Stores, bakeries, etc.

We caught up with Nick and Amanda again right before Zubiri at 12:30, which is where they were staying. We still had like 19k to go, which is a ridiculous amount for that time. I was shaking my head, saying I did not want to go that far with the amount of time we had.

We tried to find a store in Zubiri, but had no luck.

We continued on to Larrasonana, but couldn’t find any food there either. At this time it was “lunch” but the one restaurant was closed, and because it was lunch the markets were closed too, but we had to walk a lot to find that out. We sat by the bridge and ate what we could. I had a yogurt and some laughing cow cheese, and Tracy had a whole stash of stuff that she shared. It was helpful, but not the good meal that I wanted. After lunch I tried to see what time it was an how far we’d come already, but the display on my fitbit was broken. Nothing happened to it, it just stopped working. The lights were still flashing on the back, so I thought maybe it was still recording, but the display was broken.

We continued on to Zuriain, where I was planning on staying whether Tracy wanted to or not. I was not going to go 31k. However, the albergue was closed when we got there. We had no choice but to continue on.

In a comedy of errors, we ended up taking the wrong path that went by the place we were planning on staying last night before we called to find that it was closing. We were in a little town, and there were two different ways to go. We took the right path and crossed the main road and climbed up a really steep hill up to a church, and there was an albergue attached, and I realized it was that one! Tracy said, “but we didn’t go that way,” and then we realized we did, so going that way supposedly added 1k on to our total.

The hospitalero who had been running it for the last two weeks came out and talked to us, and told us about how beautiful it was and how it was a shame we had missed seeing inside the church because it closed today, but he didn’t offer to let us peek inside. “If you ever do it again, make sure to come here.”

By this time it was close to 5 and we still had 3.5k to go.

We got to the albergue right at 6. Even though we weren’t walking the whole time, it was seriously one of the longest days I’ve had. We’re staying in Trinidad de Arre in an albergue attached to a church. It’s kind of awesome. And the best part is Tracy and I have our own room, and we know we don’t snore!

Dinner was not here and we had to walk really far away across town to get to a restaurant that fed us. It was cold, and it really hurt to walk that far.

I had the tomato salad that was garnished with raw garlic, and I ate it all. Then I had a beef and vegetable thing that was appropriately salty, and then ice cream for dessert that literally tasted like butter.

It was so cold and so far back to the albergue that I ran most of the way. It actually felt better on my feet (while I was actually running, after I stopped it hurt).

I also lost my hairbrush at lunch I think. I’m very sad. It was the perfect size and it had a pocket it fit in so nicely.

I think my fitbit is good and dead. The app won’t connect to it and it says we only went 22k today. I’m pretty bummed about that. I’m sure it’s under warranty, but I doubt that does me any good on the rest of the camino. I’m also bummed because it was my alarm clock.