The Stone Site

From lessons learned from yesterday we started early having some nice hours of walking before the hammer of heat hits us! Adding endless of ups and downs and you get a fine challenge!

In our small group of two persons there are two strategies . One is a bit careful one, as target is at reach (like 2-3 km), you have to take plenty of breaks and recover from whatever pain you may feel. Another is a more brutal one, if target is at reach then it’s just to push and push more – stopping for a break so close to target is just prolonging the pain! I may say that these two strategies creates a bit of a tension, however when target is finally reach it’s quickly forgotten.

Can’t stop thinking about the old beautiful student song; “Bär ned mig till sjön!”

Woke up this morning with rain, so we made the decision to start late. And yes, the rain disappeared after some hours and the sun started to shine. After 15 km, walking in fully sunshine we agreed that the decision was not so smart! But the first hours was so beautiful, the small village of Burguete is such a lovely place. I’m happy that we have pre booked our stay otherwise we would have stayed at all these nice places! However doing the Camino one or two kilometres a day would take an awful lot of time.

The most odd experience of today was at this fine business below. It looked totally closed down, but the door was open. No lights and in the darkness I found some ice cream and after a while also (what I hope was), the shop owner! So we managed to pay and also get a stamp in our pilgrim-passport!

After a long walk down on stones and rocks our knees and feet’s where more than hurting – therefore it’s so nice be able to stay at a place like pension Amets. Not just only a private shower but also good internet! Feel quite guilty – this is more a pilgrimish experience than a pure one, where you sleep under a tree and feast on the roadkill of today!

I was a bit prepared for a hard walk and this was truly a hard walk! Think we were quite lucky with no hot sunshine neither rain but otherwise quite cold, so we avoided stopping for a rest. But the challenge was of course going up quite vertically and then in the end 3 km straight down!

A nice experience was the food truck in the middle of nowhere – home made cheese, very tasteful!

Another challenge had been the mud, due to heavy rain the trail is very slippery and muddy …

After a foggy day the sun appeared and an a wonderful landscape was revealed! Before we only heard the sound of bells – now we could se the wild(?) horses with the bells, so graceful and peaceful!

At dinner we had such a luck meeting a group of lovely ladies from Sweden and had a very cheerful evening. This pilgrim voyage has started out really fine!!

It feels like a full day – but it’s just noon and after a very, very vertical walking we have reached our destination for today! Was it hard? Yes! But there was no hot sun neither rain – just quite foggy! So we survived having many, many stops with Twitter and breathing.

Here is my first Camino stamp after the pilgrim office at Orisson. After walking so much up it’s nice to stop. Got a very interesting room, it’s almost like a cabin – feels very pilgrimish… so now it’s just to rest and enjoy the surroundings….