It’s 8:57 on 21st July and we’re 45 km from Logrono travelling by bus on road surfaces that you could play marbles on.

We arrived in Bilbao shortly after 11:30. The reception in our hotel closed at midnight but the young girl on duty waited for a few extra minutes in the street outside, heard our English accents and after checking that Dorothy really was the Dorothy she was expecting took us up to our room. The kindness of strangers.

With Bob recovering rapidly from the loss of his testicles we can continue. We’re back in rioja country, long fields of vines, scrubland and wheat. After coffee and a bocadillo jambon we’ll rejoin the Camino near the cathedral in Logrono. Our former walking companions are at least 150 km further along the Camino Frances but we’ll be joining others that started a week later. Heraclitus?