Early morning sunshine on the camino

 Villamajor Montjardin to Viana, 31km

So that is two 30km days in a row and have to say I am feeling it ever so slightly – typing whilst sprawled across a bottom bunk, feet elevated not-so-gracefully over a few spare duvets and unlikely to move in the foreseeable future. 

Quite enjoyed the night last night – couple of sneaky beers with a group of    fellow pilgrims I have been bumping into on and off the last few days  … Sylvania from Germany, Clem from Ireland, Gonzalo from Spain (not Rodrigo as I had started calling him for some reason)  and Daphne from France … not quite sure why I feel the need to anchor everyone in their country of origin, but beats a random bit of name dropping  I guess.  When I say a few beers, I do literally mean one or two which seems to be all it takes to knock me into a nine hour coma these days – whoot, cheap drunk!  I also learned a valuable lesson last night in that it is actually worth reading the guidebook the day before – turns out that nothing in Villamajor is open of an evening and you need to carry your own food in for the evening cue hungry Australian pilgrim scrounging for leftovers – oops!)

I set off quite early this morning and, caught up in fantasies about Spanish omelettes, took a new approach of stopping for a quite substantial breakfast a few hours in.  There weren’t many options along the way, so within ten minutes pretty much everyone from the albergue had rendezvoused in the same spot and it was ham and omelette sandwiches all round. 

The countryside we are walking through is pretty lovely, though with such broad, sweeping views unfortunately the photos don’t do it justice.  For the most part it is rolling green hills covered in vineyards (am due to enter La Rioja tomorrow!)  but pretty much every 5km or so, there is a slightly higher hill sporting a medieval village where you can stock up on supplies or just wallow in old stuff. 

I spent the afternoon walking with Clem who entertained me with a collection of random stories ranging from day hikers sporting oversized bath towels to travel diaries going into meticulous detail about how brown the landscape is … via the world’s most quality Harry Potter reference in a murder trial. Many fits of slightly hysterical laughter ensued (was quite tired by this point) but I didn’t realise his true genius until we stopped for a trackside snack and he pulled out a half bottle of wine, a bar of chocolate  and two plastic glasses (though no enamel sorry dad) … while all I managed to do was spill my bag of cashews down the hill. Hats off good sir, I have much to learn about this hiking business! 

Unfortunately, while the wine seemed like a good idea at the time, it did make the last 3kms ridiculously tough – that and the howling wind that had us bent into it at about 45 degrees just to maintain a snail’s pace. Needless to say we all broke the cardinal rule and checked into the first albergue on the edge of town, keener than planet keen to ditch the boots and pack and spend a few horizontal hours before dinner.  On which note, I might just have time for a nap before dinner – result!