For whatever reason, Melanie and I switched places today. I felt relatively well all day and Melanie struggled much of the day. The pace noted above shows my moving time so the clock stopped every time I stopped to wait for her.  Yesterday, Melanie did the same for me.  Melanie wasn’t hurting anywhere in particular but she just felt lethargic. Coffee and tostadas were not doing their work.  The terrain today didn’t help at all either. 

The start of the day was good since there is a nice cafe just across the street from us.  My egg sandwich and fresh orange juice kept me going today but I have to work on Melanie!s diet. Orange juice is pure energy! 

 We only started walking today at almost 9:00am because I failed Spanish 101. The e-mail instructions from the Pension where we booked our rooms here was all in Spanish.  I thought it said we couldn’t check in until 4:00pm when it really said that check-in was until 4:00pm. Oops.  We started late and took four longer breaks than normal all because “we have plenty of time”.  Ugh. That meant that we walked about 8km in the burning afternoon sun rattan than in the early dawn coolness. My bad.

The first 10km today was full of memories for us. That section covered the free wine fountain at Irache, the little former Moorish village of Azqueta, and the old hilltop village of Villamayor de Montjardin. At the wine fountain 14 years ago, we had it to ourselves in the middle of the afternoon.  that is when I really fell in love with the Camino. Today, we had lots of people posing drinking straight from the spigot.  That’s wasteful and unhygienic. I didn’t have a cup so I finished a 330ml bottle of water and had that in my hand as I queued in front of a middle-aged American woman who was too loud (go figure!).  She theatrically asked her husband to get ready to take  a picture of her, drinking wine from scallop shell, the symbol of a pilgrim. The problem was that her stage voice was too loud and sarcastic, saying the exact words “Honey, can you take a photo of me drinking from my shell, like…it’s… supposed… to… be!”  I thought that was directed at me and my bottle.  When I did get to pour the wine in my small bottle, as planned, I filled it about a third of the way up. I shared that with Melanie so we each had a good gulp. Before we left though, I went back to fill the bottle from the water fountain, just in time to see the same woman filling he 1 liter bottle with wine. What a weenie!  

We then walked to Azqueta where a favorite bar is located.  In our 2023 Camino, we took shelter there from the terrible and historic tropical downpour.  Scores of pilgrims jammed in there and they still made room for us. Shortly thereafter, we made our way up to Villamayor de Monjardin in floodwaters halfway up our shins. Villamayor was also where on our 2012 Camino and we got the last beds available in town. Some of our friends ended up spending the night out in the open air sports hall, in nearly freezing weather, fighting off the many stray cats who wanted some warmth. The hall was right across from the church so the few times the did fall asleep, they were soon woken by the quarter hour tolling of the church bell.

Back to today less historic conditions, all the rest of the 12km to Los Arcos was on long stretches of shadeless, straight, dirt and gravel farm rows between recently harvested stumps of grans.  The sun was blistering. Apparently, the news said it reached 32°C (90°F) but my watch recorded it as 39°C (102°F). It was an effort to get through that. We still arrived in Los Arcos “too early” so we found a shaded table at the church yard bar and Melanie had a soft drink while I had my Spanish favorite cerveza con limón (half beer, half lemon soda), the most refreshing drink in the world. We got to the Pension at 3:55pm to find out my error.  The woman checked us in anyway and the ironic thing was that our entire conversation was in Spanish.

Anyway, after a quick wash up and clothes cleaning, we got down to a favorite restaurant for dinner. Melanie recruited a solo woman from New Zealand to join us and we had a great meal. 

Now, again it’s a late bedtime for me so, peace y’all.  Goodnight George, Leo and Stella.