After checking my guidebook and getting a description of a kind of boring walk (this guidebook basically tells you about the type of trees there will be. Because I care about poplars and firs and can absolutely tell the difference), Noni and I were shocked when we suddenly stumbled across the WINE FOUNTAIN at Bodega Irache. I had heard about this in my "research" (let's not kid ourselves- I basically just decided to do this 10 years ago and looked up how long it was and that was it), but for some reason I thought it would be much later in our journey.
Despite it being 9am, I still had to sample the wares.
Look, for free wine, it was alright!
We stopped for brekkie at the monastery above the bodega and noticed a middle-agedish man with walking poles, gaiters on his ankles, and a machine-like stride and pace coming up the hill. We noticed him several times throughout the day and were informed that he was from Melbourne and 73 years old! More on him in another day's blog when we finally meet him.
The scenery we were walking through was stunning. I really have very few adjectives to make my descriptions a little varied, because it just was stunning, or lovely, or gorgeous. It just is, so deal with it.
For lunch we bought giant bocadillos and Noni set up a picnic area under a tree by rearranging some rocks for us to sit on. How she still had the energy to do that was beyond me.
We only had about 8km to go til we got to Los Arcos, so we headed off and walked. And walked. And walked. The scenery, whilst stunning/lovely/gorgeous et al. was actually becoming incredibly annoying. Yes, we get it, undulating hills and all that. Wild flowers galore, yes. But where is your bloody town?! Normally when we're walking we can see the town for several kilometres before actually reaching it, but this town was nowhere in sight. And so on and on we trudged. It became unbearable.
And suddenly the path took another turn and there it was. Just in time before we both threw our packs to the ground and chucked a tantrum.
We had been recommended to stay at Casa della Abuela by the lovely hospitalera in Cirauqui, so we made our way there because so far she hadn't lead us astray.
Ah, if only we could do some things over.
We got there, claimed the last two bottom bunks in the room and began to shower. Whilst in the bathroom, Noni was informed that some older people had arrived, and as a younger person, she would need to sleep on the top bunk.
Sure, fine. I think the most annoying thing was that there were plenty of other people in the room that weren't asked to move. I think the hospitalera thought we were younger than we were. Plus, Noni was very injured.
We went out for dinner and we're delighted to run into John again. We met his friend Linda who was also lovely.
And then, bedtime. This was the night we met our enemy, the American disco-light/headlamp death-rattle snorer. There was no sleep to be had. We made the decision to get a private double room the next night.
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