Holy moley, the Camino has turned everything on its head. Melanie and I both got a decent night’s sleep. The lights out time at the albergue was 10:00pm and it was religiously observed by all except one guy sitting outside on the terrace typing his Camino blog.  After I finished that though, I managed to get back in and climb into my bed fully dressed and go right to sleep.  I just kept my good ear on the pillow so I couldn’t hear the lone snorer.  Everyone stay quietly in bed until a few people left at about 6:00am. We took our time and only left at 6:45am.  We are not used to packing up our bags in the confined albergue space and we needed to make sure we were leaving with everything.

The other mind-blowing event occurred shortly after our stop in a bar in Villafranca Montes de Oca. Melanie usually would have a black coffee then, her fuel of choice, but today she asked for an Aquarius – an isotonic energy drink like 100Plus or GatorAde. Just after that stop, on one of the steepest hills of the whole Camino.  , Melanie practically ran pan other pilgrim as we ascended 250m. I could not keep up.  Usually on hills like that, when I get to the top, I stop and wait for Melanie. I would usually drink some water, stretch my legs, re-adjust my backpack, have a short siesta, etc. until she got there, then we would go on.  No more coffee for her!  Only Aquarius!

With Melanie’s new superpowers, we were passing several other pilgrims. Every day you walk, you get stronger. We know that but many other people don’t. I heard today a story of one pilgrim on his first day of the Camino within earshot of two of our friends. The pilgrim set off from St Jean Pied de Port nine days ago when he arrived in Orisson. Orisson is the first stop available on the French route at the beginning.  It is 7.8km along the way and it is 800m higher than the start.  He is still on the Comino trail but he is taking a radio from town to town “to see what the Camino is like”.

At today’s 11.7km mark in Villafranca Montes de Oca around 10:00am, we ran into Dermot and Julie, other Irish friends who we were drinking with last night. They may have been slightly embarrassed because they had not only finished their walk for the day, they were already had showered and were heading down to the cafe to get some food.  At 10:00am, they were done for the day!  Worse still, they were walking out of a really s,wa. nky hotel. I bet their butler was handwashing their clothes for them. 

After the steep climb and several kilometers straight along the high plateau, we reached a character selling Camino memorabilia. No one was really keen on that stuff but he also gave away big sliced of ic3 cold watermelon.  You can’t imagine how good that tasted. We gave him a couple euros and we were glad we stopped there.

Before dinner, I was guarding the washed clothes which were drying on the clothesline.  It looked like it was going to rain so I hung out nearby just to  keep the clothes from getting wetter.  It did rain later but at that moment were were happy.  Martin & Paddy walked into the bar. We sang “Happy Birthday” to Paddy.  He is 65 today and was just getting in several hours after we arrived. That was because he and Martin were down having a long  liquid lunch with Dermot and Julie.  It was great seeing them again but we have said our goodbyes two or three times before.  We can’t get rid of them.  

After Martín and Paddy did leave (finally), we sat down with Sebastian, a French pilgrim who started his Camino in Le Puy, France, about 900km behind him. Wow!  He is a very nice young man and we chatted about the many different Caminos, including the Le Puy route which is reputed to be the most beautiful Camino.

Peace y’all. I desperately need sleep because of drinking buddies (I’m blaming them!)

Goodnight George, Leo and Stella.