Puente la Reina to Estella - part two

The rain started at 11, when I was having another lovely bit of potato tortilla. I can already tell I'm going to ruin pans and friendships going through an obsessive phase with this dish at home. It continued until I rolled, sodden, into Estella three hours later.

I remain less than impressed with my raincoat which was not a rushed or inexpensive purchase. To avoid the double negative, I thought VERY hard about which coat to buy and paid lots when I did, so the fact that it's not living up to its 20k waterproof rating is frankly infuriating. Boo hiss.

Probably did better than the Spanish family pushing on with their long weekend Camino though, pictured in their ponchos. The little one kept lagging behind literally kicking rocks, I liked her immensely.

In Villatuerta, the penultimate town of the day, there was a cathedral on the hill and I stuck my head in, to see an entire congregation, standing, mid-hymn. Easter Sunday, you IDIOT. In a state of flight (it's never fight, often it's freeze) I scurried in and found room in a pew. I then cursed myself because how was I going to leave? Anyway the thing continued, still standing, all in Spanish but I could follow the gist - Padre this Padre that. It's not like it makes more sense to me in English.

After a while everyone abruptly turned and started shaking hands with everyone in the vicinity, so I joined in, earnestly shaking the daylights out of pensioners and grinning. Is that normal? I don't spend much time in churches so I'm not sure, I did like it though. They jumped into another hymn that sounded exactly like the Saints Go Marching In, which I assume didn't start out in life as an AFL song but it is what it made me think of.

When they all started lining up for communion I slipped out and trudged on to Estella, home for the night. This did involve yelling eSTELLAAaaaa, wetly, for my own amusement.Read more