Estella to Los Arcos

I was mad all day that I got rushed off the computer so quickly. When I walk I think of so many things I wish I´d posted. Downside to keeping the blog...it´s been three days since I wrote anything but quotes from Aussie Ausbourne (Brad) in my journal. I wanted to describe so much more, and the next day, a whole 20km later, it fades so quickly....

Aussie calls me Sigourney Weaver. HAH!!!!

Well, today suuuuuuuuuuuuuuucked. Actually, only the second half. Today I walked with the Germans, Felix the Cat and Kasey Kahne and Aussie Ausbourne. (Sidenote on Aussie: DREW SWIFT - if you took me seriously and are actually reading this thing, you need to know that this Australian guy Brad is your Aussie alter ego. HE IS YOU. I´m pretty sure that´s gonna irk you, but I can´t help it. In fact, I´ve met a few people so far who seem SO CLOSE to people I know from other areas of my life. It´s strange.)

We took our time leaving Estella. I wouldn´t have minded spending the day there for a rest, but we pushed on anyway. Lots of hills out of town.

A lesson I´ve learned on the Camino...maybe I´ve said this already. Never underestimate the ability of the road to continue to go UP. BUT...also, never underestimate the beauty of the view you´re going to get at the top. Just when you reach the point where you´re cursing the waymakers, and looking bitterly down the dropoff to the road that went AROUND this hill instead of over it, you look out over a valley or at a church or a keep or SOMETHING and learn to shut up and trust St. James. The inclines are there for a reason. The Camino will have nothing to do with tunnels, shortcuts, or the path of least resistance, and all it asks of you is to trust it. Your reward is to breathe in the panorama and soak up the picture postcard you´re walking in for a solid month.

On our way out of Estella, we realized we were in some pretty serious wine country. Here is where my mother, Lynn, and everyone in Monterey is going to get really mad at me. We walked up this hill past a wine tour and decided not to wait for it because we had a long way to go today. But we also walked past a WINE FOUNTAIN. Someone had a picture later on and three other people swore to it, a FOUNTAIN OF RED WINE ON A WALL. And somehow an American and an Australian walked right by it without our alcohol homing devices going off. Byron, Ben, Grace...you would never have made such a mistake, and it will probably take me years to live this down. But, like the running of the bulls I narrowly missed, it just means I¨ll have to come back one day.

The first half of the day, from Estella to Villamayor de Monjardin, wasn´t that bad. Footpaths past vineyards. I picked a teensy little grape and it was pretty bitter. =) Soon after we left Estella and the wine castle (I don´t know how else to describe that building), we saw this kind of keep WAY UP HIGH on a REALLY HIGH MOUNTAIN. And I thought, GOD please don´t make us walk up there.... But it kept getting closer and closer, and Kasey Kahne´s map told us that Villamayor was the high point of today´s trek. Turns out Villamayor is the town just below the crest of that mountain, and is built on a sort of outcropping of it. We got to the albergue there, got a stamp, and found Christa from AustriaMozartNoKangaroos. YAY! (Michael from Idaho left the Camino today...it´s his second trip...if you do the Camino in the next few years, look for the albergue he wants to start somewhere along the way.) We had a long, leisurely lunch...Aussie and I had made sandwiches again, and the Germans found some German beer, and I had an ice cream straight from Heaven. On the square where we sat was the bust of a person. I found out it was the king of Pamplona from the early 900s, and he is looking up over the rooftop to the keep at the top of the hill. And the plaque says that he´s interred in that keep!! His eyes looked so realistic...it was chilling. I LOVE it when statues do that...look out towards something significant, like where their body is or where they died. Like King Charles (I or II I don´t know) who looks down Whitehall in London, where he was later beheaded. We got some pictures with the King.

In Villamayor, we saw three pilgrims dressed in long black cassocks with white collars. Big broad black brimmed hats and glasses. I asked to take their picture and IT IS AWESOME. Can´t wait to see that one blown up. They were very tolerant and were easily able to guess where I was from. I suppose my request was a little impertinent, but I couldn´t help it. It was a BOMB ASS PICTURE. And hey, you do the Camino in this heat in a long black robe, you´re gonna get some attention.

We left Christa from AustriaMozartNoKangaroos in Villamayor because she decided to take an easy day and rest, since she´d planned to stop in Pamplona and therefore was a day ahead of her schedule. I´m sorry to see her go. When you get off a day on the Camino, it´s pure chance or coincidence or Providence (pick one) whether you meet again.

After Villamayor, the only good thing were the views behind as we headed out of town. The church spires, the keep on the mountain, the town itself, the vineyards surrounding...beautiful. On the Camino, YOU MUST LOOK BEHIND YOU FROM TIME TO TIME. If you don´t, you miss some of the most amazing views available to you, and a lot of people don´t. In fact, it´s hard to even look AROUND you sometimes; you get so preoccupied with staring at your footing on the rocky trails. But you have to stop and look at what you just left. Sometimes it´s painful to do so...you feel like you´ve walked so far and what you left seems so close...but far more often, it´s breathtaking.

The rest of the day was hot sun beating down...misery. Not a spot of shade. Long gravely paths through wheat fields and vineyards and flocks of sheep. I STILL didn´t have a hat, and was hurting pretty bad until it occurred to me to use my towel and my headband to make an Arab style headpiece (which looked pretty badass, ha ha). I had to stop four times today for sunblock, but I¨m peeling tonight anyway. When I say it was hot sun beating down, you simply can´t imagine. This is why I want to skip the meseta up ahead.

Sometimes my knee was fine, and other times, it was all I could do not to scream. I don´t know why it comes and goes like that. My blisters are manageable...Compeed gelpads are straight from God...and muscle aches are still shifting. I would give my kingdom for another half inch across the toe of my left boot. My left pinkie gets mashed under the toe next to it, and as a result, has formed into a callous/blister type thing that´s something between a horn and some kind of weird nipple. I have sore spots on my collarbones from my packstraps.

About packstraps. I am the Pack Strap Queen. No one seems to know how to balance their packs, and a lot of people don´t know the top straps, the stabilizers, even exist. I now have a reputation for being able to fix people´s straps, and the looks on their faces when I´m done are kind of like someone getting a massage. Ha ha. LOVE being useful. I am also the best communicator in our group...in Spanish...everyone gets fluent in Gesture within a couple days.

Part of today was about tapping into anger. I got so pissed off at being stuck out on that endless prairie that I finally just took off. Realized that babying my sores and injuries didn´t hurt much less than stepping it out, so I got mad, cranked up the iPod, and booked it. It felt pretty empowering. Good experience. Aussie did the same thing soon after. =)

By the time we finally made it into Los Arcos, I was practically hallucinating visions of swimming pools. The Germans had reserved us all beds at an Austrian albergue in Los Arcos. DUDE. FOOT POOL. A tiled trench with a bench next to it, with ice packs floating in about three inches of water. HEAVEN. Such simple pleasures become so friggin´ amazing on the Camino. Sitting down is paradise. Cold water on your feet is beyond paradise. Crisp morning air. The nectarine I had this morning came from the Garden of Eden and would´ve been worth the exile.

Tonight we´re washing clothes. Aussie and I ran into each other in the town square after hunting down ATMs and hats. He made me buy a round-brimmed lady-type hat that he says makes me look like Mae West. Ha ha. We found him socks and me a new toothbrush, and even scored some after-sun lotion and FANFARE--A KNEE BRACE!! Wish I´d bought it at home when it was cheaper, but c´est la vie. Really excited about it. Met an American expat-type guy who is the head of the English department at the American University in Dubai. Nice conversation with him. Gave him my card.

The American crowd from Arres, the CCM group, is here tonight, but they´re being pretty inconspicuous. =) They´re very nice.

Felix said he´d cook dinner tonight, so I better get back upstairs, because it´s probably already happened.

Thanks for all the comments, especially the one about how I´m mandatory breakfast reading. =) Who is Sagalouts????? Rose G?? Thought that was right, but one is signed Ian??

Tomorrow...Logroño!!! Love you all.