emilyonearth

I finally had a decent night’s sleep last night, though the trend of everyone getting up at 5:00am to rummage through their bags continues. Why they don’t organise their things the night before, I have no idea. I think they think they are being quiet, but they are not. We had a slightly shorter day today though, and a reservation in a private room at the end of it, so we stubbornly stayed in bed until a little after six, while everyone around us left. Once we got up, we started the day with a pretty average apple and a cup of tea before getting back on the road around 7:00am.

Today’s walk started by taking us around the back of a magnesium plant, then up and back down a series of hills. We met a Korean man not long after the magnesium plant who followed us for the first hour or so. At one point we stopped for a drink of water and he caught up to us. He told us that we were walking so fast that he found it hard to keep up, “even though [he’s] a man!” I didn’t think being a man had much to do with it, but did find it interesting that he was struggling with the pace even though he wasn’t carrying a pack!

About two hours after we started, and halfway through today’s distance, we stopped in the town of Zuriain for some tortilla and coffee. Mum was most impressed that there was a spinach tortilla option! It was also here that mum took her shoes off to air her feet and she discovered that she had developed a blister directly underneath the nail on her big toe. It must have been very uncomfortable! She decided to change her shoes for her sandals and we continued on our way.

From here the trail was more exposed, and as a result I’m looking a little pink this afternoon! After a while we hit a town which was essentially the outskirts of Pamplona, and an hour later we found ourselves in the middle of town, headed to our accommodation for the night.

We continued our routine of having a wee blob in the afternoon before thinking about something to eat. After a wander around the supermarket, we settled on a big chunk of bread, salami, cheese, and tomato. We also bought a huge punnet of strawberries that we are currently working on, plus some bananas and peanuts to keep us going tomorrow.

We’re heading back up over 750m in altitude tomorrow, which is only half as high as day 1, but still a bit of a climb, so hopefully our tired wee bodies make it through, and mum’s toe doesn’t explode…