Today’s Data:
The Song in My Head: Give Me The Night - George Benson
Word of the Day: Kiwi
Today’s (Random) Craving: Eating Uncle Dan’s Famous Waffles in Leggett
Total Steps: 42,342 steps
Total Walking Distance: 20.7 miles / 33.3 kilometers
⏰ Wake Up: 6:30am
💤 Sleep: 11:00pm
Nanu Nanu!
Today was a wonderful morning. I finally set an alarm last night, and I woke up at 6:30am. Packed up, brushed my teeth, and got on the road at 7:15am with Ludwig.
Today we head to Puente la Reina. And it’s supposed to be hot. When I left the albergue there were still people walking the streets after clubbing, and even the street sweepers were escorting me out of town.
After a couple kilometers, I stopped in a beautiful park and stretched my legs while enjoying the gorgeous sunrise.
I began today solo, but I ran into some people from Denmark, and two New Zealanders, which I quickly realized are referred to as “kiwi”’s. Never knew that. And I also met another Ludwig from France. They were all so fun to walk with and brought so much good energy to the morning.
During our trek we were gaining on a duo that we’d never seen. (A lot of people start the Camino in Pamplona). And they were playing music from their backpack speaker. Boy did I want to slap them in the face.
One of my biggest pet peeves.
At a Ski Resort is bad enough but on the Camino just made me mad.
So I sped past them and started my way up the mountain.
I stopped at the top and enjoyed the breeze, and caught up with some friends I met yesterday and we began our descent down the other side.
The second half went by very fast. We walked through some small towns, even saw a car show in one of them.
Then I found this cut out statue made perfectly for Doug Dimmadome. You best believe I walked through it.
I made it to Puente la Reina at 12:15pm. 5 hour trek today. I checked into the albergue and realized I had left my towel in Pamplona outside on the drying rack. So I had to go buy another. Then I did my regular shower, eat a kiwi, and do my laundry routine.
By 2pm, Max and I were bored because barely anyone had arrived into town yet so we went walking around to see if they were at another albergue.
We walked to the bridge and saw a man swimming after his fishing pole in the river. Apparently a fish had yanked it out of his hands and was swimming away with it. Hahaha
We then watched the man swim out, retrieve his fishing pole, and return with the pole, and the fish in his hand.
Standing ovation. We went down to congratulate him and he let us take pictures with the fish.
Then we proceeded up the hill to find an albergue with a swimming pool, pool table and foosball and darts inside. It was so nice and apparently only 15 euros(ours was 9) but nobody was staying there, except the two people who were playing music on the trail. Lmao. We asked if we could use the amenities annyway and they got real mad at us.
So we left, went back to our albergue and met some Italians and Germans in the back garden. I started teaching all of them Kombio (thank you Jackson for teaching me this game it has changed my life forever) and we played for hours until 7pm.
By then a lot of people had made it to town and done their clean up routine, so we went out and found a place to have a beer and get food.
We got burgers.
And when I tell you it was the biggest burger I have ever seen. It was as big as my face. And it had a fried egg in it which is so good if you haven’t tried it.
I ate the whole thing. I had barely eaten all day. And I definitely know that I will be full until tomorrow afternoon from it. We then talked until 9:30. I found out I am the youngest in our group. Everyone else was much older than I thought lmao.
Also. I went to the restaurant bathroom and found the longest damn faucet handle I’ve ever seen. Thing looked despicable.
But we headed home and got ready for bed.
Tomorrow we go to Estella. And supposedly there is a Running of the Bulls festival this weekend, so we will be getting up at 6am to get there early and beat the heat. Can’t wait.
See y’all then,
David