Los Arcos to Viana

I´m completely floored. Go to the comments at the bottom of yesterday´s blog and follow the link there. People I don´t know are reading this. (YAY!! Thank you, Rosie and Ian...I was so confused because I thought I knew you and couldn´t figure out who you were...thanks for spreading my ¨fame...¨ and for reading. Ha ha)

WELL. Didn´t make it to Logroño. First time I haven´t reached my goal, but it was a flimsy one, and I just didn´t have it in me to go 29km today. Nor would I have been able to go 28km tomorrow. I think I need to be okay with about 20km per day for the time being...so what I hoped would be two days will become three. It´s okay.

Let me backtrack to last night. When Felix said he´d cook dinner, I thought he meant he´d cook DINNER. Felix cooked DESSERT. For like 10 people. Make that for like 10 KINGS. This stuff was SOOOOOO good. It was like a really, really thick pancake cooked in a huge skillet, then cut up into big chunks, and topped with a syrupy, crystallized type of peach topping that was just to DIE for. Everyone in Germany/Austria/Hungary knows what it is, and so people kept popping by to scoop out heaps of it onto little plates and they were all really excited about it. Go Felix! =)

Al...Donk...the SS Officer / should-be-an-Australian-rugby-captain guy...loves me. Turns out he´s been putting us on. His English might be better than mine. I asked what he did, and here comes this entire paragraph about corporate logos and marketing designs and exhibitions and on and on and on. We hung out a lot last night. It´s starting to get really bad, my frustration with not being able to post pictures. I want to show you everything and everyone I´m talking about!!!

Got some laundry processed last night. You can usually trust the washers, but don´t count on the dryers. Thanks to good pre'trip planning, I have nothing cotton with me and all my stuff got dry, but Brad (whose new name is Skip Norris, Chuck´s younger Australian half-brother) has a lot of cotton and cammo stuff and it just doesn´t get done. Plus, it´s heavier. NO COTTON on the Camino!!!

About Skip Norris. Skip or Skippy, in case you´ve never met an Aussie, is what they call kangaroos in Australia. And amongst our group, we´ve developed an obsession with Chuck Norris. Lauren, if you´re reading, I need those lists that were on your classroom door about Chuck. Every time we come across a situation, we try to figure out how Chuck would handle it. Example:

Felix: I´m hungry.
Brad: What would Chuck do if he were here and he got hungry?
Kasey Kahne: ...(quietly beginning to sing part of some random song in broken English containing a random word said somewhere in the conversation)
Me: Chuck would eat the tree bark.
Brad: Aw, yeah! Chuck would walk up to the trees and they would just drop their bark in fear!
Felix: Chuck would peek up zeh tree and carry it witt heem.
Me: Chuck would will a tree to grow up from the bare ground.
Kasey Kahne: ...(still singing)

And on and on and on.

Kasey Kahne does that a lot. But he looks like Kasey Kahne, so pretty much anything he does is okay by me.

We made GREAT time this morning. I was listening to MePhiMe and hit a killer stride. We probably did 6 miles in the first two hours, which is nothing if you´re walking your neighborhood in sneakers without blisters or thirty pounds on your back, but if you´re cutting across country and up and down hills and are loaded down like we are, it´s pretty damn good time. Walking out of a beautiful little village, we saw some kind of fruit tree. Skip Norris said they were locuts (?) and that they were really sweet...and he was right. We picked four. They were like hard little peaches, really juicy.

Lots of olive trees today. Lots of vineyards, some more wheat...the hills weren´t too bad. But no one tells you that you go about 12km between Torres del Rio and Viana with NO WATER FOUNTAINS. All three of the boys ran out. The Camelback is KING. Especially if you can sweet talk the lady behind the bar at the lunch spot to give you some ice to put in it. =) Today was a banner day for lunch...we just went ahead and bought bocadillos at a bar and I learned how to ask for mayo and mustard...so that way it wasn´t just ham on a dry hoagie. Thank GOD.

Not much else interesting to say about today. The pack has vanished. I no longer notice it on my back. My feet, however, cannot be similarly convinced, and are screaming pain by the end of the day.

Here´s a concern...open to solutions...I have lost all skin sensation on the front of my right arm from my shoulder to halfway down my upper arm. I noticed it yesterday afternoon...it didn´t come back last night...and it´s still that way today. Today my left big toe went the same way. Is this normal???

Viana isn´t a pretty town from far off. You do a lot of the approach on the side of the highway, which is also not pretty, nor are the cranes all over the new part of town. But the refugios are in the old part of town, with A MAGNIFICENT church. The church is also a refugio, but it´s barebones and donations. The Germans, Hank, and Al are all there, and they said they donated about 2€ because there are no beds, they´re sleeping on mats on the floor. (And just yesterday I was grumbling about the pound my sleeping mat, thus far unneeded, was adding to my pack.) That didn´t sound to good to Skip Norris and I, so we went looking for another one. This one looks like it´s in a castle. Just outside the windows in the hall is a great ruined abbey type structure, currently being rebuilt. There are TRIPLE decker beds this time...we are both on the top...that sucks...but the shutters open up to a view that you would happily pay 300 bucks for on a Spanish vacation. I´m not kidding. Got a picture of the valley and the olive trees in the courtyard and the 11th century stonework framing it all. TO DIE FOR.

We sat with the old crowd on the street outside the church and had a few beers. Dinner was a kind of fried egg sandwich...interesting. The second one was better...had sausage in it. Skip Norris and I went to look at the facade of the church and immediately decided to grab our beers and sit just inside the churchyard gates so we could just stare up at it. It was in a beautiful square...nearly deserted at first except for our group and a crowd of about eight German speedbikers...but gradually filled up the closer it got to Mass time. Before Mass I went in and looked around. It was as good as any church I´ve seen in England, except maybe Salisbury or Westminster Abbey. It´s just so frustrating not to know what you´re looking at!! We´ve vowed not to leave Logroño without a guidebook.

Early to bed tonight. We want to leave at 6am tomorrow and get to Logroño by 9am...hunt around in some shoe shops...Skip needs a new pack (the one I sewed the strap back onto yesterday is the worst one in the WORLD) and I and my pinkie toe are seriously considering some trekking sandals that you can wear socks with. The only problem with this plan is, if I´m not wearing my boots, I have to carry them. So we´re going to take our time in Logroño and hopefully make it to Navarette tomorrow...about 25km.

I popped the pinkie toe nipple-horn-blister thing about an hour ago and wrapped it up in Compeed. Hopefully it will get better tomorrow. I wish I hadn´t thrown out the original insoles a few days back, but oh well...they didn´t have near enough padding, and I´d still be dying, even if my toes had more room.

Swimming pools are becoming a daily obsession.

My hat works great...as long as I stitch up the back of the brim, otherwise it hits my pack. Second day the sewing kit has come to the rescue.

The Germans are like Abbott and Costello. Today I kept sending them onward because if they kept chattering all around me, I´d kill ´em. I love ´em, but they´d have to die. Too much idiot slapstick American pop culture humor. Jeeeeeez.

Skip Norris is a great walking buddy. Sometimes I´m way ahead, sometimes he is. We keep a good pace. Sometimes his headphones are on, sometimes mine are, sometimes both. Think I´ll stick with him a while. We don´t ever see Hank or Yasmeen or Al on the trail, but we usually find them in the evenings. Yasmeen is quite a large Austrian girl...did I mention her before?...attacked by a bull in Santo Domingo last time she tried...? Found out tonight to my disappointment that a large part of her Camino is by bus. Shame. Yet, why should we judge her? Interesting thoughts.

My pants fit looser. Need to keep tightening the belt and the hipstrap on my pack.

We saw our puppy today!! She´s still going....

Pack organization is now a science...approaching a ballet.

If you´re reading this and thinking of doing the Camino, DO IT. You need NO preparation. Today I took a picture of a German couple...he is 70, she is 67. They´re doing the same route. I had NO hiking experience as of 8 days ago. You see all kinds of footwear. Every night I´ve had a hot shower...many places have a washer (and they give you soap)...and this is my first time without a pillow (sent it home from Puenta, dammit). ONE night without Internet. Cheap days (as long as you don´t buy knee braces and if you can keep your drinking to a minimum...or help Australians drain their blisters and then they buy beer for you). It´s a sweet, sweet, simple life. All you do is walk. My group has NO drama. You want to walk at a different pace, off you go. You want to skip ahead, more people are waiting for you. Helps on the trail to speak German. The Farmacia is the candy store...you can´t help but go in, looking for ¨body repair¨ items. Simple pleasures become joys. Bring a digital camera...and ALWAYS TAKE THE PICTURE. You can delete it later if it´s crap, but if this three-monk one is good when I get home, it´s getting sent to NatGeo. And get a guidebook. It sucks not to know what you´re looking at when you see something cool, and it´s not enough to go home and read about what you saw and try to remember the good parts.

DO IT. It´s the cheapest, most rewarding vacation you´ve ever had. I´m on day 8 of 35 and I already know this. It doesn´t matter what size you are, what shape you´re in, or how old you are. Just do it. And if you can...do it alone. Let St. James send you some of the most amazing friends you´ll ever have...don´t insulate yourself with a friend, or godforbid, a significant other...at least, not if you´re young. The old couples are cute and kind of touching, but no one talks to the young couples. They don´t seem to need anyone else, which I think violates the spirit of the Camino. But to each his own.

All for now. Thanks again for reading...I love the comments, so please do...and tomorrow, hopefully Navarette. If you find something interesting to see there or just beyond, email me...though I hope to have a guidebook by 10am tomorrow.

Love you all.