After much discussion we’ve decided to continue but like pretty much everyone else we’re going to avoid walking after two o’clock give or take. With this in mind, leaving an albergue around six in the morning will give us a good 6+ hours of walking time plus stops for coffee and jambon bocadillos, enough time to cover up to 25 km per day which should see us in Santiago De Compostela in 24 days time.

We left late this morning having enjoyed the benefits of a cool quiet private room in a lovely little pension near the main albergue. We’ve now stopped for the day having covered the best part of 21 km in an albergue/pension with the albergue on the ground and 1st floors at the usual €10 per bunk bed and double rooms with en suite for €45 – no prizes for guessing where we’re sleeping  tonight 😉.

This albergue/pension is astonishing. It has a beautiful pool with waterfall, gigantic hot tub, sun beds with real sun and it’s own orange life belts, presumably abiding by local health and safety regulation.

The restaurant is excellent and we’re about to indulge in the usual paltry pilgrims fare of three course meal including bottle of decent wine, grilled salmon and sauteed potatoes

The usual pilgrim suspects are also here. The Korean lads are in the pool, David and his mates are in the hot tub and the Italian girl from Venice and the Irish lady with the swollen ankles are enjoying the lounge downstairs.

Ashleigh, a 70 year old American lady now living in Canada and in despair about Trump and American gun laws has made her way slowly from Roncesvalles and is hoping to make it to Santiago de Compostela by 11th august. She’s still on the road hoping to make it to the next albergue a little over 3 km away.

Roisin and her husband from Wexford in Eire are still in Puente la Reina after Roisin was rushed to hospital with an infected blister, great concern but thankfully handled with some antibiotics once it was clear that septicemia hadn’t set in.

An eclectic mix, all with their own unique reasons for undertaking the pilgrimage. Some are undoubtedly on a religious pilgrimage but others like ourselves because it seems like the right thing to do. In an increasingly insane world driven so much by by motives of personal aggrandisement an 800 km walk seems like a gentle remonstration that there are other more important things in life. It’s a sobering thought that at this moment some 9,000 pilgrims of all nationalities and with their own personal histories are quietly, painfully making the 800 km walk to Santiago de Compostela. Even more sobering is that they will be joined en route as the Camino del Norte, the Camino Primitivo, the Camino Portuges, the Camino Ingles and the Camino de Madrid feed their own unique set of pilgrims into the river of humanity making its own way to Santiago.

Buen Camino