Wednesday 11th April 2018

32 km (351.4km)

There was a break in the bad weather for today, apparently, it’s back to rain all day tomorrow. I left the unremarkable Carcaboso and headed out towards farms surrounded by my favourite sound; barking dogs. I was brave and talked to them all, probably because they were safely caged behind gates and high fences. I took a wrong turn almost immediately and added 2k to my route. The wrong turn still had yellow arrows on it so it is more accurate to say that I took the longer of the two alternative routes. The walk was beautiful, through open fields and estates, full of oak and cork trees. I saw two other pilgrims and talked to a French man who had been in my Albergue last night. Last night I didn’t speak any French to him and if today he was a little surprised that I seemed to have mastered the language overnight he kept it well hidden. I also walked a little with a Spanish woman but she was too speedy for me (even if she did have 10 grandchildren). My hostel for the night had advertised that it would pick up from the ancient ruins of the Roman city of Cáparra. The weather was so great and the Spanish woman was ahead of me so I ignored my guidebook’s advice not to proceed if there had been heavy rain recently and followed Marianne. After about 6km and increasingly difficult river crossings, we finally came to a fast-flowing one with the stepping stones at least 1m below the surface…so we about turned all 6km back to the Arch of Cáparra. There is no sign to say not to proceed so it was all a bit annoying. I ended up doing 32km today but Marianne was already doing 38 so then had an extra 12km…she decided to come at least part of the way with me in the car to my hostel. I arrived around 4 pm only to discover that the kitchen was shut until 9, such was my dismay that the chef who was on her way out of the door came back and rustled me up a menu del dia…that doesn’t happen to me very often.

Tomorrow is supposed to be rainy with the possibility of some snow so I’m going to try and be finished by 1 so that my boots have time to dry for Friday. Apparently, by the weekend there’s a better weather front arriving so fingers crossed for less rain.