Day 3 - Wednesday 24th March

This morning was very cold – we saw a lot of frost as we set off and the sign on the pharmacist said -5^oC!

 

The first part of the day was walking on the roads but we saw no traffic – in fact the way was so quiet that we saw a deer in a field and it then ran across the road. A little bit after this we came to a split in the road and were uncertain which way the arrows were pointing but there was an elderly gentleman behind us who showed us the way to walk.



 

 

We walked the 2km to the first village where there was a Pilgrim donation bar whose posters said it was open from seven every day. It was shut (and it was past eight) so we found a bench and sat down for a few minutes before continuing.

 

We went down a flat path and saw a fox running past us off the path. The path stayed straight for maybe half an hour but we knew that that couldn’t last and soon we came to a village and started to climb. The first part of the climb wasn’t bad, through a small forest but then we came to a split in the road with three possible paths (and the trees to all sides, which presumably had once had an arrow on them, had been cut down. Our book had no directions in it so I left my bag with Becky and went down the path on the right which petered out to nothing so we chose the middle route (that one and the path to the left seemed to be going in roughly the same direction and the left path seemed to be more stony whilst the middle path was the one that seemed to be straight on from where we had come from and when in doubt you are meant to go straight).

 

We started going up and were soon joined/overtaken by two cyclists who were a Father and son or Father and nephew, we couldn’t work it out. We chatted to them a bit and were pretty close for the next hour or so as we climbed.

 

The relief at reaching the top was short-lived as we saw that we were just turning a corner to climb again. We spent the rest of the day climbing and were relieved see a built wall and then an asphalt road which turned in a motorway leading us to a village with an amazing bar where the owner had every Pilgrim who visited sign a shell – they were attached to every wall and spilling out onto the outside walls as well.

 

 

We had planned to walk on but Becky’s foot was too bad so we stayed at the albergue in the village – it’s in an old building but was very cold so we spent most of the afternoon sat outside in the sun. There was no shop in the village but pasta, tins of chickpea, tins pof tuna and tomato passata in the albergue and everything was for a donation so we cooked for the other two pilgrims who were staying there – a German girl and a Spanish man who managed to light the fire in the albergue so we were warm that night (he also worked out how to switch on the hot water although the water was only warmish before we went to bed).