Day 8

We are now in the Rioja region, I will apologise in advance for the dip in quality of these blog entries over the next few days! Lorgrono is quite a large town which sprawls out a long way so the scenery wasn't very exciting in the morning. I had some more German tutoring and listened to 1984 rather than marvel at the surroundings. My Spanish is still very poor but I can now order a coffee with or without milk (we average 2-3 coffee stops a day!). After Lunch we picked up a really lovely Polish air hostess who has a passion for everything Greek. I enjoyed listening to her describe the food and culture, perhaps my next adventure will be some Greek Island hopping.

Tonight's Aubergue was "donitivo" so you didn't need to pay anything at all but simply give a donation. It was a pre-fab hut but had everything we needed (bed, shower, toilet, kitchen). We found ourselves together with many who had been at the previous hostel and the atmosphere was fantastic. A very glamorous Persian lady offered to cook everybody dinner and using the very limited cooking facilities she knocked up a delicious three course meal that left nobody hungry.  Together with a few bottles of Rioja this made for a very enjoyable evening full of chat, dancing and the usual cultural exchanges. We attempted to learn "thank-you" and "I love you" in everybody's language. The evening was topped off by a singing performance from an elderly Spanish man who had once sang for the King.

Day 7

It is really starting to turn into a walking holiday rather than a Pilgrimage.  Glorious sunshine, fantastic views and we just missed the rain...

We were discussing how we could punish ourselves. Perhaps remove out shoes and go without dinner. Although  we were walking into a very strong crosswind at times and todays walk was long so the shoes stayed on and I have not gone hungry. All this  time simply walking with no other pressures is luxurious and you can enjoy day long meandering conversations with fellow pilgrims. Todays conversation with Ludger was mainly a German lesson. I was surprised at how much I remembered from school and together with some expert teaching am now able to say months, days of the week, seasons, numbers, rooms and some furniture. In exchange I continue to share English phrases ('two shakes of a lambs tail' has been his favourite for some reason!). Unfortunately by the time we arrived in Lorgrono we had lost our Italian friend who had promised to cook us Carbonara.  I cooked instead and made us a giant batch of stir fried vegetables with cashew nuts and rice. My diet has been slightly poor, consisting mainly of bread and pasta so I enjoyed a nice veg hit.

This evening I have been reminded I am not on a walking holiday but on a very unique journey surrounded by others who have opened there hearts and minds to this experience. I'll shall have to remember when I get back to the UK that it is not normal to be so chatty with complete strangers. Tonight I met a French lad who started his Camino in Nyon and has already been walking for 31 days. He has finished his studies and not sure what he wants to do next.

Day 6

A dry day today. Thank goodness! Felt more like a walking holiday than a Pilgrimage. I walked to day with Ludger (Camino dad) and Maurizio from Sardina (not part of the Mafia he is quick to tell us, suspicious). We also got a small amount of free wine. Next door to a church there were two taps, one producing water and the other wine. I abstained as 9am is too early even for me.

We walked till Lunch. Ludger is still very fearful of my reaching a state of hangriness and I was definitely on my way there by the time we stopped at the Aubergue in Los Arcos. Living in London I always find it hard to comprehend that there are times where no shops are open and this was the case being a Sunday afternoon. Ludger is very resourceful and managed to get some free salad a from a farmer who going to feed it his animals but was still very edible. Then for a small fee he negotiated some supplies from a local cafe. In the evening after dinner we sat around the table, as always the company was multicultural. I got a little emotional experiencing the warmth of all these different nationalities being together with no common language but still somehow getting to know each other.

Day 5

I struck out on my own today leaving the 6 disciples (now 5) behind. The rain was gentler than yesterday but non stop. It fitted really nicely with the 1984 audio book I was listening to which is all about a very bleak and dreary communist dystopia. About lunch time I'd had enough solitude and my equipment had reached it's waterproof limit. However I did still have some gas in the tank and ploughed on day dreaming of a nice hot shower. At around 4pm after walking 30km I felt I was done and the rain was getting heavier. The next town the Aubergues were closed, then the next town closed again. Eventually after walking 40km (two days of walking in my schedule) I arrived a cold, hungry, drowned rat at a town called Estella.  All was worth it to be reunited with friends from previous days and...my Camino dad who immediately made me a coffee, found a big warm blanket, a bowl of soup and a plate of pasta. Then followed the best sleep of the whole Camino.

Day 4

So it turns out Jesus Could not handle all that cheap red wine. I was made aware of this in the morning when I asked someone what the rubbery pink bits were sticking to my socks. Turns out it was the pasta I had cooked last night and I had slept right through its regurgitation and the subsequent attempted clean up operation. Jesus had slept in bunk underneath me and luckily apart from his own clothing the only other items he had turned purple were my beanie and another girls bra.

Today was a short walk with the highlight being a stop in Pamploma. We got rained on almost the whole day apart from a short break which allowed us to take a few nice photos...

When we arrived in Pamploma wet through morale was low. However after getting into a warm dry bar for a coffee and some pintxos (Basque tapas) spirits were lifted. I also bought two glasses of the Basque liqueur Patxaran only to find out my companion was unable to to drink alcohol. Luckily in true Camino spirit another Pilgrim came along to help us out. The stuff was like a very large serving of pink Sambuca, two glasses would have flattened me.

The hostel we are staying in now is very comfortable.  Our group has our own room and we were able to have use of a washing machine. 

Day 3

I had expected to sleep like a baby after all the walking but I probably only slept for five hours. This however was not due to snoring. Several people had warned me about the loud snoring I would encounter but of the 13 people (mainly men) I was sharing a dorm with only one was snoring at medium volume.

Jam and bread to start the day again and then we set off into the snow spurred on by a Korean chap with a beautiful voice singing us a song. I was really impressed with this guy, his English was very limited but he did his very best, blurting out random aspects of Korean culture we might know such as "Gangnam style" and "Ji-Sung Park". He got very excited when I shouted "Korean BBQ" back at him.

Halfway through the day we suddenly emerged from our winter wonderland. This was a relief as conditions were icy and I had slipped onto my bum already. Most of the day was spent walking with a fellow Brit who was mainly doing the Camino to evade Tax. He'd just come from working in Africa and needs to stay out of the country for a few more weeks. We had some nice chat and he got me thinking about maybe working on an Oil Rig in the future.

During the day I became separated from my Camino dad and when we reached todays Aubergue was very sad to find out he had carried on further. Maybe he decided I would be too much of a drain on his resources if we went all the way to Santiago together.

The village we are staying in has no restaurants this time of year so I bought some supplies from the "supermarket" (a little farm shop ") and with some help from the other Brit David cooked up a hearty pasta meal for us and four other Pilgrims. After the meal we gave ourselves Pilgrim names. So I, Jane the Baptist am sharing a dorm with King David, St. Anthony, Jesus, The Prophet and The Son of James. Jesus and The Prophet are currently still knocking back a few bottles of €2,50 red wine from the Supermarket. I personally am saving myself for walking through the Rioja region!

Day 2

I was woken up in the morning by the kindly Mr Hello (again apt). I thought I was fairly familiar with French culture but I was surprised on asking where to coffee cups were to be directed to a pile of bowls. Apparently it's standard in France to have a bowl of tea/coffee for breakfast and dip bread and jam into it. After emotional goodbyes to the two ladies running the hostel a band of five of us set out assuming all the others knew where we were going. Once we realised this was not the case, got our guidebooks out and asked a few locals, we found the start of the "easy" route to our next destination (the other was closed due to bad weather). Our rag tag group consisted of two Germans, a Lithuanian and a Pensylvanian. This group gradually reduced through the day untill it was just me and one of the Germans who I have adopted as my Camino dad. I taught him a few new English phrases such as 'best of a bad bunch' (Angela Merkel is the best of a bad bunch), 'this is a goldilocks walking pace' and 'I am hangry'. The last phrase particularly concerned him when I explained that I can become very angry if I have not eaten. So every mile or so he would produce a large bag of goodies which included apple he had dried himself and large bars of chocolate. I was very grateful as there was nowhere to stop for lunch and there was alot of walking uphill in the rain whilst we made our way through the Pyrenees. The last part of the walk was through snow and we got snowed on which is actually much nicer than being rained on. We got to the hostel with plenty of time to relax meet other pilgrims, shower and have a hearty dinner with a few wines. The first day is supposed to be thw hardest which must be why everyone, at just after 10pm has already gone to bed. Not sure Roncevalles has much night life anyway!