Arrived: Los Arcos 5:00pm
Total hours: 9.25
Total kms: 44
Accumulated kms: 876.8
Weather: Sunny and overcast
Man, are we caning this walk or what? I walked with Philippe again today and we are the Camino team from hell. We left Puente la Reina a little after most the other pilgrims, and I´m guessing they all went to a bar for breakfast because we didn't see any of them again today. Last night, one of them found out we'd walked 40km and we were bonafide heroes in the alburgue, everyone was shaking their heads in amazement and saying how amazing it was and cheering for us. Tonight, after a 44km walk (when we were expecting glory and gifts showered at our feets), no one really cared. A lot of people here tonight are cyclists, and they've all ridden a lot further each day. It doesn't matter that they're on wheels, when you tell them you've walked 44km and they respond with the fact they've ridden 70km, your glory just slinks off quietly to hide in the corner.
There were a lot of fields today. Long, winding paths through expansive green and brown fields. The first half of the day we passed through several small towns, many of which resembled the Goblin City from Labyrinth (okay, so lots of places remind me of that movie), but in the afternoon it was just field after field after field. We kept thinking we were closing in on Los Arcos, then the path would wind around another mountain and we´d be greeted by yet more goddamned fields, and no city. We were clearly just tired from the long walk, but the final 5km felt like it took a week to walk.
A friend we've met along the way, Agnes from France, caught the bus from Larrasoaña the morning we left there, and caught it to Ellista (that's wrong, but close - I forget the name). Originally she was going to stay there last night and walk today, in which case she would have ended up here where we are (we walked four stages in the past two days). We were really keen to turn up one day after she caught a bus for an hour and make lots of fun of her, but unfortunately she decided to do that walk yesterday after the bus dropped her off, so we're a day behind her. Tomorrow we plan for a shorter day, then a long one the day after, so we'll have to wait a little bit for our wildly amusing jocularity.
It seems I was very lucky crossing the mountains too - the pilgrim office guy had told me that up until two days before I crossed they had been impassable due to bad weather, and we heard yesterday that the day after we crossed, it snowed like crazy up there and was still going now. I've been so lucky with so many things on this walk, it's amazing. Loads of people keep telling me how wet I will get walking through Galicia as well, so I'm hoping my luck will hold out and it'll be rare sunshine all the way.
The towering buildings of Pamplona made photography difficult.
This was a display set up on the top of a mountain.
This light was there for just long enough to take this photo. It would have been even better if I had been smart enough to get my silhouette out of the way.
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