I’m not going to lie. That was tough for us, particularly for me.  I was fine until about the 11km mark when my body started asking “Is it one or two more kilometers today? We are trying to ration the last little bit of energy”.  Uh oh. At that time we were still going through a lot of short steep inclines and declines. My body hated the answer I gave and went on strike. Much of the last 10km seemed like a trudge for me. Melanie only had that reaction on the last 4km.  She did more prep for this walk than I did and it showed. We stopped in both of the two towns before Estella for some isotonic drinks which helped a little but not near enough.

Another issue with today’s walk was mental. We often see our target town between 2-3km before we arrive at it.  Sometimes it can be seen several more kilometers than that.   The sighting of our end point of the day always convinces me “We are there, we just have to find our accommodation.  I can’t feel exhausted while I’m bearing down on the finish line, right?  But the geography of the entrance to Estella along the Camino is mean.  We can only see it when round the corner next to the furthest eastern building in the city. At that same time, I started to look on the map to find our accommodations for the night. It turns out I somehow booked a room 1.2km away on the other side of the town, rather than about 400m to the center of town where that last building was.  That was a bit demoralizing but a perfectly timed video call from the grandchildren picked us up considerably, as it always does. I am not sure why Leo kept asking to see our boots but if he’s happy, we’re happy.

The highlights of the walk were mostly in the first half of the day.  Before we even left Puente la Reina, there was the really nice bakery that opens at 6:00am for the crazy pilgrims.  It was packed with pilgrims and locals at 7:45am when we arrived and just as busy when we left a half hour later.  Camino Joe was leaving as we came in but we never saw him again. Near the end of the same road, we got a look inside the 12th century Templar church. Finally at the edge of town on the same road, crossing the river is done over the medieval Queen’s bridge (hence the town’s name). It was built for pilgrims heading to Santiago. 

There were some steep climbs and forest trails to lead us to the next town, Mañeru.  We stayed at the old albergue there when we first walked the Camino which brings back bad memories.  We kept walking through town to the next one, a real gem, Cirauqui 

Cirauqui is built on a steep conical hill. Houses a perched nearly on top of each other all the way to the top where the church is. Descending the other side goes over a Roman road and bridge. I got to chat up a young Korean girl heading into the town (due to my Korean linguistic skills including a fluency rating  of 98% in five separate words).

By the time we reached the next town at 13km, I was out of it, just like I am now, try to stay awake to type this at 10:00pm. I’m going to sleep and hopefully, sleep well. I thin I managed a paltry five hours of sleep last night due to loud noises in and outside the Albergue as well as continued jet lag and worries about booking rooms during this busiest season. Now, Melanie has been asleep for an hour so there won’t be any proofreading of the blog. I promise, I’m not drunk. I’m just 3/4s asleep. 

Peace y’all.  Thanks for the video call kids.