Arrived: Puente la Reina 4:30pm
Total hours: 9.25
Total kms: 40.5
Accumulated kms: 832.8
Weather: Sunny and warm, late dark clouds
Today was my longest walk yet. I sat down last night with Philippe, the Colombian, and we went through our plans together. He is aiming to finish the Camino by December 5, which is about the same as one of my more ambitious plans. Today we walked together and cleared 40km easily, with a few breaks to buy food, eat, stretch and check out the Pamplona Cathedral (it was closed, but we saw all the really heavy bells sitting outside...apparently they're really famous). There was also a mountain pass to navigate, which seems to be fairly unusual for this stage of the walk. I can't say how I'll feel tomorrow but right now I´m feeling good and I can´t see why I can´t bust out more long days, especially with mainly flat distances.
On the way up the mountain we met an awesome Nigerian guy who was clearing some weeds. He loved that I came from Australia to Spain to walk, he was so proud of Spain and of being Nigerian at the same time, he just kept laughing and saying how excellent it was that we were in his country walking. At lunch we came across a guy taking photographs up on top of the mountain )Alto de Perdon - Mountain of Forgiveness), and when we arrived he started photographing us. He was clearly a professional, and we're hoping we end up in a Camino book somewhere, eating lunch on top of a mountain.
Throughout the day Philippe tutored me in Spanish, and kept quizzing me as we walked. He's very proud of my progress, just like a real teacher. When we needed to ask for directions or buy something, he would get me to do the talking and jump in only if I was floundering (which I generally did). I think he's keen to walk with me, if not for the rest of the way, at least for a while. I have really loved walking on my own but it was nice chatting with someone all day, and I can see my Spanish getting better much faster if I walk with him, so perhaps I'll try it for a bit. At least he has a great sense of humour! And I didn't have to worry about him keeping up, he seems to walk quite a bit faster than me, I was the one chasing on more than one occasion today!
Tomorrow we have a choice between 24km and 44km, all fairly flat (well, one or two bigg-ish hills). I think we're going to leave early and see how we feel, and what time it is, at the 24km mark and decide from there. It's only a little under an hour more than what we did today, which means we'd still get in during daylight hours, especially if we don't faff about as much as we did today in Pamplona and some other places, looking for chocolate bread in panderias (bakeries). The good thing about not booking rooms in Spain is that you can make these decisions as they come up, not a night in advance. The day after I think is a fairly easy one, so we can probably push on a bit tomorrow, I guess it depends on the weather too. All will become apparent during the day!
I saw loads of these weird spider webs, but no spiders. Probably lucky.
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