emilyonearth

Last night’s “sleep” was horrific. The room was SO hot, and even with the door to outside open there was absolutely no air movement. I slept briefly when we first went to bed but woke up again around 9:30 and didn’t sleep again until after 1am. I was not happy about it.

We were one the road again a little after 6am, and today’s walk was a shorter one – just 18km. The first part was very pretty, with a few hills and several grapevines, with nice views too. We stopped about halfway for breakfast, ran into another Kiwi, then continued on our way. The second half of the walk was alongside a highway, but the scenery was still pretty, so it wasn’t all that bad.

Due to the shorter distance, we arrived pretty early – about 2 hours before the albergue opened. The owner came out and met us though, and invited us to use their garden to relax in while we waited. They had a lovely wee area with seats and a swing and a hammock, covered in grape and kiwifruit vines, and surrounded by other fruit trees and vegetable gardens. After an hour and a bit we wandered off to find some lunch, then were back in time for check in.

While checking in, we had a bit of an odd experience. A rather lively Croatian man who we had met at our albergue a couple of days ago came in and asked for a drink and to use the bathroom. He spoke with the albergue owner about the latter’s trip to Croatia in the late 90s, which turned into him telling us about how he used to be in the military and couldn’t believe people are still going to war, and then before we knew it he was in tears and unable to stand, and the albergue owner had to take him to sit down and calm down. It was all quite surreal.

Dinner tonight was particularly good. We had beetroot hummus on bread, zucchini soup, Greek salad, tomato tart, and raspberry almond cake. Afterwards, we took part in a traditional ritual to celebrate San Juan, which is part of the midsummer celebrations here in Spain. We lit a small fire in the street, and all added something to burn, before jumping over the fire as a way of unburdening ourselves. It was good fun, and nice to do something a bit Spanish!