St Jean Pied De Port to Valcarlos

Aka a series of photos of Branna's back, and if that's not doing it for you then I have quite bad news about the next five weeks. Waking up in a private room and walking without my bag are two things I didn't do at all on my first Camino, so it felt very luxe. Unburdened, we arrived into town at 10:30am and began an unmitigated mooch until we could check in (two hours early) at 1pm.

Going via Valcarlos means all the climbing is tomorrow. The Buen Camino app tells me we did 13km, almost all on (very rural) roads rather than trails, with just 263m up and about 140m down. Tomorrow is about 950m up and 450m down, which will be a right tonic for my chest, rapidly becoming host to a wet cough.

In preparation I got a very tactical nap in, and we are currently waiting until the kitchen at the bar down the road opens at 7:30pm. Gib.

- Lex

Hola, it's me, Nigel Thornberry. I was struck with a strongly curious thought on our trek this morning as to whether Europe has dung beetles. I've never seen a dung beetle and, evidently, I would quite like to.

I let the thought float around in my empty skull for some time, until my companion prompted me, some 8 hours later whilst waiting for supper, to Google it. That I did, and friends, WONDERFUL news.

Not only does our current region host numerous DB species, but in a passionate discussion with Google AI I discovered additional potential species to spot. These include, hold onto your hat, hedgehogs and badgers - upon reading this I proclaimed quite faithfully "if I see a badger I'm going to SHIT". What a dream.

Circling back to reality though, animals already spotted include:

Cow
Horse
Cat
Pig
Dog
Chicken
Sheep

5 stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

- Branna (Nigel)Read more