Day 10 - Momma Said There Would Be Days Like This

Sept 21

Destination - Ciruena

Distance - 25 km (we think)

Hours of walking - Seven with little breaks

Terrain - mostly gravel shale trails, except for the pavement 

Weather - big blue skies, cool breeze in the morning, hot wind in the afternoon

Nature - grapes, almonds and sugar beets

Misadventure - If you are alone on the Camino, there may be a problem. 

A big day walking meant up and at 'em early. I know some of you may not believe it but we left before the sun came up. 

A gorgeous cool morning

Under 600km to Santiago!

Sunrise over the vineyard with mountains in the background

It was a beautiful tranquil walk through the vineyard with a nice even path for us to walk on. We got lulled into a false sense of security... And missed an arrow marking the turn. Oops! One Spanish farmer alerted us to the problem and pointed for us to return the way we had travelled. Then the other farmer pointed in another direction, to a town. He was insistent that was the way to go. Or we thought he was insistent as no one understood a word he was saying. So... Being good polite Canadians we followed his directions and ended in a town we were not expecting at all. We knew where we had to be, but a big interstate highway was between where we were and where we needed to go. Just when we were at the end of our rope, another Spaniard stopped and assured us that walking down the highway we were on was the way to go and safe for us to do so. Finally, after 15 more stressful minutes, we connected to the town we needed to get to. We stopped for a celebratory coffee. 

The long and winding road

The last stretch was hot and very very hard. After 10 days, we are very tired pilgrims. We dug deep to make the climb into our destination. (Even Dee
who swallowed a fly at the worst possible moment)

We found our Alburge and were treated to a warm hostess. She washed our very smelly clothes and then made a wonderful meal for us. The ice cream in Spain is amazing. 

Pilgrim dinner

It was a very tough day today. Lots of kilometres, the stress of being lost, the heat wore us down. However at one point, we talked about airports and I was sad thinking of how it will feel to leave here. I have been dreaming of this trip for years and now I am living my dream. I knew this would not be a cake walk and it is time to dig deep and find the inner strength I know is deep in there. I think of my synchro girls often when things are tough, and know how hard they train for those few minutes they get to reap the efforts of their hard work. I know that my moment of success and the feeling of accomplishment will be so worth it. I have a great team here with me. We are all falling into great support roles. Even when things got tough today, we managed a song or two! 

I had to reach out to Roanna, my trainer and friend for a push today. Thanks to all the support us. Maybe our momma's didn't tell us there would be days like this exactly, but we know that our family and friends have given us the grounding to find success. 

Thanks Roanna

Cheer of the day from Wendy - because we got lost, we were in an unexpected part of Najara. Coming around the corner we saw our Orrison friend Tracy, who was like a light of sunshine.