Estella to Los Arcos

This morning at breakfast the room was so crowded that I took my breakfast (supplied by the Estella refugio) out into the cool morning and lo and behold found some English speakers. Three Aussies, only one called Barry but all from Canberra. Unfortunately, English aside, there was not much in the way of interesting conversation - despite no lack of verbage from each of them.

As I set off I felt ´today is easy´; the walking not too strenous and the backpack starting to feel lighter. I wandered along thinking that in a few more days when L´s feet are better it will be time to start taking a long lunch break and then walking a bit longer. We would both like to up the kms in due course so that we can take the odd day off to look around interesting cities that are coming up.

The first stop was the Irache monsatery- Only 2km into the walk so very early in the morning _ but never too early to fill one´s water bottle from the eternal wine fountain- One bottle each that is, so thank goodness for the hydration bladder for the days proper fluids.

As I walked on from there I thought it would be great to find a pair of scales somewhere as this is day 7 walking and surely I must be losing some weight (though shorts not providing encouraging feedback).

So it was with quite a pop that my balloon deflated on arrival in Los Arcos. First thing at the refugio is washing and showering and foot inspection. Imagine my horror to find a bed bug sore on my foot, already up into a blister from the rub of my boot. Scouring my body I found all the tell tale marks and knew that by tomorrow morning I would be well on my way to looking a right royal mess. It was particularly disheartening when I had gone to such lengths to prevent them and very hard not to feel resentful of Leonie, carrying but not using or sharing, a bed bug mattress protector weighing 100gms. She had bought it online but not thought to tell me about until too late. (and not to  mention not getting bed bugs herself when I had been using all manner of sprays and cover protectors)

My balloon furtherdeflated on going to the chemist to look for some spray the refugio told me about (which they didn´t have) I got on their scales and found I had put on 1/2 kilo. I might have to just resign myself to it being my´time of life´ because you could hardly have more exercise or eat more healthily than I have been doing for the last week.

But all was not lost. I went to the alimentacion and got some tinned lentils, courgette, garlic and a tin of mussels and used olive oil and a pan from the refugio to make a delicous meal washed down with a full water bottle of very delicious monatery wine.