Rioja to Alboloduy

We had 23km to walk today, but of course, it's not so much the distance that matters, it's the terrain. The day was split into three clear sections of youghly 8km each with a rest point at a café.

We were up and away slightly later than planned at 0620, and the first section to Santa Fe was very pleasant. It was cool, and we walked the whole way in the shade. The café was open, so we had our breakfast there.

The second section was always going to be the most difficult, as there were three mountain peaks to go over. The steep climb began before we even got out of the town. The first part was on tarmac, although it was a flat hard surface, it was very steep. Eventually, the tarmac became gravel, a bit looser, and more difficult to walk on.

It levelled out briefly and then started to ascend to the next peak. When we reached the top, we found that there was an extremely steep descent and that it was mostly gravel and loose stones. We got down by zig-zagging across the trail. I was surprised that neither of us was injured. We then had another shorter but steep climb with a longer, steeper descent into the town of Alhabia. We were very glad to stop at the café for half sn hour to recover.

The section from Santa Fe to Alhabia was the same distance as the section to Santa Fe, but it took us twice as long to do it.

The final section was a lot easier, flat, and on a tarmac path, but we didn't get to Alboloduy until 3pm.

We were both jiggered but got on with the tasks of the camino, then went to the only bar that was open to get some dinner.

We went to bed glad that we had split tomorrow's stage over two days.Læs mere