Today was a very long day and pretty tough especially the last 10k. We left the albergue in Puente la Reina a few minutes after six o’clock having grabbed a coffee and a few pieces of bread. It was still pretty dark but by the time we’d crossed the famous bridge out of the town dawn had just kicked off.

The path to Estelle was very pleasant passing golden fields of wheat and astonishingly regular fields of vines. The path was constantly bisected by lines of large ants fetching and carrying what seemed to be tiny heads of wheat. So many had been passing that they’d cleared the little tiny stones making an  impressively smooth surface.

We arrived in Estelle, a mere 21.7 km from Puente la Reina a little before noon having stopped a couple of times en route for coffee in the small bars that are invariably open catering to passing pilgrims.

Lunch was a typical pilgrims three course meal of salad, fish (whole mackerel), bread, wine and dessert. We’d plumped for water rather than wine, very sensibly as it turned out later.

The major problem that I’m dealing with on this trek is that having started so early in the morning, necessary given the ridiculously high temperatures that hold sway by lunch time, thus means that our 20+ km walk is over around noon each day leaving us with pretty much nothing to do, apart from eat dinner until bedtime at 10 pm. It’s terminally boring 😭. So today we decided to see what it would be like to walk an extra 10+ km after lunch, delaying getting to the albergue until just in time for dinner.

Bad, bad error of judgement. It’s hard to walk 10+ km in temperatures over 34° with no shade and no breeze, wrapped up to the eyeballs to avoid being burned to a crisp by the relentless sunshine especially when the last 2 km is consistently steeply uphill. Mum was worried about having a heart attack, I was worried that she’s simply pass out with heat stroke and I’d have to carry her to the nearest road, flag down a passing car and rush her off to hospital.

We made it – just!

The pension we’re staying in is really nice, we have privacy and our own bathroom 😍. Our clothes have been washed, dried and after a good night sleep we’ll review our progress tomorrow. The current thinking is to continue the journey next Easter, we have so much to do at home with Bob etc. But since you guys have things in hand …