Puente la Reina/Gares

Do you know what a waste it felt leaving a 12 noon check out opportunity at 7am? Biblical. I did enjoy turning a light on as soon as I got up, what a treat. I'm well rested but I've also broken my routine, lost my mates, and shown muscles I'm trying to exert dominance over some leniency, which I'm hoping won't lead to mutiny.

I think moving forward, rest days might be the rare exception. I couldn't wait to walk again, even if it is still BLOODY RAINING. After a few more days of this I think the sun comes out and the temperature doubles. We'll see. I'll complain about that bridge when we cross it. With rain comes mud, and the learning for today is that on the trail (as, if I can be so bold, in life) sometimes it's quicker and cleaner to go through than around.

I had heard that many locals will do a bit of the Camino over the Easter break, and sure enough the trail was crawling with Spanish families and groups. It's been by far the busiest stage yet and brought a very different vibe to the albergue*, but good on them.

It felt so good to be walking again, and I know I bang on about flow-state all the time but I was in it for long stretches of the day. That's largely down to good wayfinding, come to think of it. I was chugging along down from the wind turbines when I saw a car, which was odd as it was nowhere near where a car should be. Then I rounded the corner, thinking about the car, to see a man crouched in a bush with what looked like bolt cutters and a determined expression on his face. I stopped, he stopped, and making cautious eye contact, he snipped a piece of the bush off with the secateurs, inviting me to find this normal. I chose to do so and kept going, admittedly a bit quicker.

I lost a bit of weight lately and have been horrified to discover my bum is on its way out, shrinking at a rate of knots. I've been keen to claw it back out here with all this walking. No idea what distances to trust anymore, but I think it was about 24km today, with some discretionary wandering taking us up to 29.

Alas, you can take the girl out of roller derby but not the total lack of glute activation out of the girl - each afternoon my thighs lie gasping and red on the floor, and my bum looks up from its magazine idly to ask if we all had a good day. I'm going to go eat an entire flan instead. Maybe I'll catch more ass flies with honey.

*Addendum after dinner - it's a circus in here and I actually hate it. Gone are the quiet journalling and story telling days, everyone is loud and acting like they're on school camp. I feel like a sore thumb around these weekenders, and hope getting further away from Pamplona at Easter in both distance and time will bring back the vibes. I'm also aware of how stupid this all sounds, it's their country and they can do whatever they want. Just please be quiet? Some of us plan to do this for weeks.Read more