It was a long 19.5km, in the heat and hills to Cirauqui, our next stop. The route to Puenta la Reina crosses a mountain ridge (the Alto de Perdon) with wind turbines at the top ruining the natural landscape and an interesting sculpture of the silhouettes of pilrims made from rusted iron. I was nearly blown off the ridge getting these photos!
Finger in the way!
Me posing as a pilgrim.
On the way we thought we´d do the Spanish thing and have a siesta. We stopped in the town of Puenta la Reina and had our snooze right by the famous medieval Puenta (bridge) on the Rio (river) Arga. It was built by the Royal Command in the 11th century. Nearby were some Spanish pilgrims who were also enjoying a siesta. We struggled to chat, their English was a bad as our Spanish, but we managed to understand that they had walking with their dog from Madrid up the Via de la Plate.
I´m loving these ancient doors and couldn´t resist a little rata-tat-tat during siesta!
The old narrow streets of these walled cities are gorgeous.
We hauled ourselves up the last killer hill in the good company of Erica, a fellow pilgrim who kept us laughing all the way and into Ciraqui in the early eve. We were told off in the nicest possible way by the Hospitalario, the warden of the refugio, for arriving so late and she warned us that we would risk sleeping in the street if we came to refugios this late in the day. So we needed to either walk faster or leave earlier. We missed the provided pilgrim dinner but luckily found a shop open and got some snacks of ricecrackers and tomatos. We were happy to share our little dinner with our befriended pilgims, funny Erica from California and big Dave from Ireland but even after 19 years there he still considers himself English.
I am finding the walking hard. My feet are killing me, my sholders are sore from my heavy pack of about 6k. I don´t want to mention this to Mum cause she warned me about how things add up in weight but I snuck in a third pair of undies and of course I couldn´t live with our my face shrub, cleanser, pimple cream and moisturiser. Oh how my vanity is crushing me!
Adios!
Sounds fun! Missing you sooooooo much
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