Estella to Los Arcos

So in Los Arcos, the Camino begins to enter the wine region! Today's walk also marks the beginning of some of the challenges of the Camino.. feet.

I found it difficult to focus today because my feet are beginning to take up quite a bit of brain space when every step is becoming painful. Thankfully this walk to Los Arcos was only 21 km, and when I arrived in Los Arcos, I enjoyed a beer with two American men with whom I had also met before in Puente la Reina, and they gave me their extra package of blister bandages! It is quite remarkable how when meeting people on the trail or in a bar at the end of the day how they already feel like they are your long lost friends. It is a Camino thing.

However on this day at 5 pm, I also had a transfer to Viana, a nearby town, because when I booked there was no accommodation in Los Arcos, so at 5 pm my prearranged taxi arrived exactly on time in exactly the right place. The driver dropped me at a lovely hotel in Viana in the middle of medieval looking street ( and I am sorry I didn't take a picture), but unlike the taxi driver who was prompt and where he should have been, my luggage was not! In fact my luggage was lost! For the second time!

While the hotel receptionist tracked my missing luggage, I consoled myself with a beer in the hotel patio/bar where I met a wonderful group of pilgrims from Germany and Australia. I borrowed a phone charger...so I could also try to track my luggage down, and be assured it was found in the next town...at the next hotel!

The evening was very camino like...we had some beer, some wine and then we all went for a pilgrim supper down the way, where I enjoyed more wine, a salad, a piece of fish in a tomato sauce of sorts, and a bowl of strawberries and cream! We shared blister advice, the pros and cons of poles, and in Germany they also play pickleball with a net around the court! The Australian couple are travelling to Edmonton after the Camino because their son lives in Edmonton! A small world.Read more