October 06 2019

This.shit.is.hard. It’s not that the route is particularly steep. It’s just the day in and out on your feet for a lot of miles every day.

This is a high level idea of the day:

6-630 am wake up. Pack bag up, get feet ready (blister tape, Vaseline etc.)

730am breakfast

8am head out. Still dark

8am – 1 or 2 pm (today was 245!) hike

Around 3 hours in, is when your feet start to kill and you start hobbling 

Maybe stop but the last five days, I’ve only stopped today for a beer. It normally hurts more to stop 

2-3pm check into hostel, shower, start laundry

3-4pm eat snack for lunch. Cheese and ham with fruit usually

Rest of afternoon socialize or nap

730pm dinner

9pm bed

Repeat

I had a fever last night and I think it’s from the spider bite I got. It was super hot and my hand started swelling up.

So I woke up in kind of a pessimistic mood, not ready to take on the day. 

But day 5 had a black mark on it…

As I was packing my bag in the common room, I saw the dude with the 5 tattoos of the Camino on the couch sleeping. He then told me he had a kidney stone (ouch!!!) and had slept there bc he kept having to get up every 2 min to pass it and wanted to be close to the bathroom

Poor guy. 

Then I went to breakfast and this cute old Australian came up to me. He said he was there with his wife and 25 year old son and last night he had a seizure!?! And so they had to stop and go back to Pamplona. Poor family. 

After some pan con chocolate- I headed out, wishing him well. About an hour into the hike, an older (like 70s?) Norwegian man just toppled down face first and scrapped his whole face and dislocated his shoulder 😦

The ambulance came and he was eager to just get hiking again and just wanted them to pop in his shoulder and be done with it but they wanted him to go to Pamplona. When he heard that, he freaked out bc it was in the wrong direction.

So after hearing and seeing those 3 peoples situations, I figured I needed to buck it up and change me ‘tude.

The scenario today was actually really lovely and the towns we passed through were very charming

About two hours in, I crossed paths with an Icelandic couple and we just ended up staying together the rest of the day. It was the first day I hiked with people and I think it helped a lot to pass the time. They bought me a beer at one of the towns and we walked another 4.5 hours together till reaching our destination

We walked through Navarra, land to the Spanish red wine Rioja. There’s grape fields everywhere and we tried a couple- super sweet!

You pass this vineyard – Irache wine, along the trail. They put out a fountain where you can have free wine and water flow out. A lot of people bring empty bottles to fill up/ but we just poured some into our mouths and kept going.

Rather than a hostel in the main town, we booked small cabins at this camping resort popular amongst the Spanish ppl for vacations. We all weren’t keen in sharing rooms after today. It was 3km (1.8miles) past the main town but at that point, we were moving sooo slow. Took us forever to get there. 

Everyday is like the best feeling in the world when you sit at reception and take off your shoes. I whimper in pain and relief every time. 

I gimped to the shower and grocery store to buy some ham cheese and yogurt for lunch. And afterwards, passed outttt laying with my feet vertical on the wall. I could’ve slept forever but forced myself to wake up about an hour later to get laundry and more food.

Weirdly I had no appetite for dinner though. Eating my salad and fish made me feel sick. I get worried that I have food poisoning or something when that happens bc logically, I should’ve been starving. But I couldn’t stomach eating that stuff. I managed to have an ice cream cone though (of course you did Lauren).  The Icelandic duo found me for dinner and then we parted ways to our cabin.