Tag: camino

Peak temps today were 40C at around 5pm, and unlike yesterday, no cloud cover, so another early start to beat the heat. Fortunately, this is the last of the heatwave, and tomorrow will be relatively cooler. I'd heard some folks complain about sections of the Camino being a bit ugly, and for the first week, I think it has been mostly beautiful with occasional ugliness. Some of those areas have been quite spectacularly ugly, but thankfully short.

The penultimate day of the hot weather today. We calculate around 6 hours of walking, plus breaks, so 7 in total. 6 am wake up is planned. I'm covered in sweat sleeping all night without a breeze, so I'm awake by the time the first alarm goes off at 450am, and getting ready shortly afterwards, despite the general agreement for six.

Things are heating up, a heatwave is blasting through northern Spain right now. But we only have four hours walking to do today. We set off at 715 and take the forest route when presented. Before the path splits, there's a wine fountain for pilgrims.

We set off relatively late today, as we only had 3 hours to walk to Estella, a small town. Our small group became a bit larger today, picking up a few people from the hostel on the hill. Early in the morning, one of our group goes to check out a young Chinese pilgrim sleeping in a covered area in a public space. She arrived very late the night before, after dinner, during a light summer thunderstorm.

Today was the longest walk of the trip, so I had to start early. I got woken up in the hostel around 530 am by some South Koreans also getting an early start, so decided to get out a little before my alarm. The weather is hotting up in Spain, with the afternoon getting up to around 36C today. Morning is much cooler so it pays to get as much hiking done before midday as possible.

The extra hour in the sun yesterday meant I had a "rest" day today, walking only 3 hours to get to Pamplona. Arriving at 1030, I bumped into an older Swedish lady Kirstin who I met on the train to the start.