I got up 5.12 cuz of noise, in fact some older gentleman was yelling stuff, and women were kind of laughing deferentially at him... I was less charmed by his ways, I would have liked to hit him across his head (compassionately)...I was walking by 5.40 I had 31kms as my goal today, this is a long day for me... I had some foot pain the first hour..i got my coffee from another crappy machine.. leaving cities, is sometimes tricker, when it comes to finding the markings, I got to follow the two italian woman out of the rather large city... It took maybe four kms to get out..to my displeasure I had a lot of tarmac to walk.. I was surprised that despite the aching of my feet, I manged the first 12kms rather quickly...It was an overcast day, once the sun did come up....landscape seemed less exciting but I suspect it might just be a mirror of my mood.... it did seem more industrial..there was a section of fence with crosses woven by pilgrim passer-bys... again despite the huge influx of pilgrims I saw mostly the same ones i've been seeing and had lots of alone time on the path..which is still surprising..but pleasant.....
it took 12kms to reach the first real coffee and cream croissant, which of course tasted so much better for the struggle.....My diet was horrible today... nuts, a little gummie bears, two cookies, an apple... greasy bar snacks... but water was plentiful... when I rest on the side of the trail I still have local pilgrims check in on me.. The spanish men seem to have stern or stoic faces, so when a chocolate cookie gets proffered at me or I am asked if I am okay, it throws me a little........ I probably did not take enough breaks on this day.... I feel somehow more compelled to walking....
I got to the destination Najera by two...the Auberge is a little confusing to find, I just keep following arrows and eventually see it...others seem to have gotten lost and where frustrated by the time they arrived...there is a long wait to get bed assignment, two middle aged American woman are in line complaining... I wished they would not..no one else was.. and I am always a little uptight about what kind of impression other Americans make in the world when they travel, leaving us others to have to live it down.....as Karma would have it, I would sleep right next to them..... the man assigning beds is german which means I can communicate with him, I ask if I could sleep above a woman...i hope I could avoid a snorer.. he grants my wish...but the bunk beds are set up so that two of them are right next to each other, meaning you are sleeping with a stranger... ironically mine would be an older man and yes he would snore... I only had to wait a little for shower... Outside, was still overcast with now a threat of rain.. ... I took nap and slept at least an hour solid and woke at four.. I take a walked around town..it seems to be surrounded by cool red cliffs and there are storks nesting every where...i can hear them clapping their beaks together and I love that sound....there seem to be a group of school children on a mission to find pilgrims to take photos with..it seems to be a a school assignment.. I get recruited for one photo... I found a bar with wifi , I have some tapas and a beer...this young man appears to be hitting on me, which was ironic since it was clear he was gay, but he was definitely pushing boundaries...but he eventually left so I did not have to ..... a lot of stores where open and this was a larger town... it took a while to find my way back to Auberge mostly because I was shopping.. I got new ear phones for my mp3 and they would help drown out the snoring I dealt with that night...the man I sleep next to I have met a few times... he only speaks spanish and I seem to see him chatting up all the older single spanish woman... every day it seems to be a different woman or group of women.. I am safe because I am tall, dont speak spanish and am not acting very impressed by him.. ..i get to test my head phones that night, since he does snore...and yes the recorded white noise on my mp3 drowns him out! Success... this room is full and holds 94 people..it gets stuffy.... there is rain outside...
No comments:
Post a Comment