Another relatively gentle day today. Some 18.8 km covered, a small mountain ascended (and descended), lots of flowers, snails, slugs, ants and groves of almond, olive trees and vines at the beginning of the Rioja region.

We’ll start with our early, somewhat forced awakening at 5:30 a.m.

We left Tom snoring peacefully as we headed off into the early morning darkness.

The first few km passed quickly as we headed towards Alto de Perdón, a ridge some 300m above us.

The first rays of daylight revealed fields of corn and perhaps my favourite flowering plant, the sunflower.

If ever there were a case to be made for the intelligence of plants, sunflowers surely would be the first in line. Sunflowers anticipate daybreak. At sunrise, sunflowers face east to greet the first rays and continue to move with the sun until it sets in the west. Overnight, the sunflower head swings back around so that it once more faces east at dawn.

Shortly before path began climbing we came across Zariquiegui, a small village nestling underneath and in it its solitary albergue serving breakfast.

As we sat making our way through our first ham sandwich, thunder rolled across the hills and the first drops of rain fell. Nothing daunts Dorothy so after finishing our coffees we headed out, put on our anoraks and the coverings over our rucksacks and suitably clad we made our way up to Alto de Perdón.

The hedgerows are full of gorgeous flowers at this time of year.

Mexican petunias,

and tuberous Jerusalem-sage

A profusion of snails

and the view back to Cizur Menor

Standing on the ridge were these behemoths.

and at the very top are these famous metal sculptures.

The last image was taken by two delightful ladies from the Dominican Republic, now living in New Jersey and with accents to suit.

The route off Alto de Perdón appears to follow an old river bed winding its way down into the valley. It’s quite steep, initially full of small loose scree but on its lower half choc full of large pebbles and in today’s weather, quite slippery underfoot.

Safely down, the route to Uterga where Tom was about to be dropped off if all went plan passed through fields of what at first sight looked like olive trees but we’re in fact almonds.

Nestled in amongst the branches on many of the trees were large clumps of mistletoe.

The trees appear to have been neglected and many were either dead or dying and in those instances killing the mistletoe too.

It was a somewhat sad scene.

The path continued to wind down towards the bar at Uterga where we met Tom briefly as he set out to start his walk to Puente la Reina.

As is the nature of the Camino, peregrinos that you’ve shared an albergue with keep passing and are passed in turn. These two American girls were no exception. Walking in a fairly loose group of four they struggled a little on ascents and descents but made up time on the flat. Dorothy and I pretty much meandered our way to Puente this morning, stopping off to admire the flowers, the trees and especially the ants.

You can’t see them in the previous image but every few tens of metres we’d come across a large number of large black ants ferrying bits of corn from one field to the next.

The closely coordinated activities of ants and bees as representatives of social insects never fail to amaze me.

Because Dorothy and I will be looking at this blog in the depths of winter, here are some more pictures of flowers.

First some field bindweed

And next, some chamomile

and the most extraordinarily beautiful hexagonal pattern of seeds of the thistle.

This next thistle image is I think particularly interesting.

The final couple of km passed the Spanish equivalent of our allotments but slightly better managed.

In the foreground of the last image are artichokes. We used to have a particularly impressive line of artichokes until the payback team failed to recognise their non thistle nature. C’est la vie.

Our albergue is very pleasant. We stayed here last time we walked this way and indeed we have the same room looking out on the local church in which at 10x resolution on my XS it’s possible to see our first storks this year 😊.

It’s 20:16 and after spaghetti puttanesca for the main course (cooked by me but with too much chilli), bread and wine, followed by melon, Tom is off to bed. Dorothy and I have a private room while Tom has elected for the somewhat less private bunk bed in one of the dormitory rooms. He’s sharing with up to 9 others and has already struck up a friendship with a Spanish chap in need of a USB-C charging cable.

We’re a little tired after what turned out to be a long political discussion over lunch with some Spanish peregrinos and the owners/cooks of the 5* (tripadvisor rated) bar so it’s time to relax, read and get to bed early in time for tomorrow’s 5:30 start.

Buen Camino