Puenta la Reina to Estella

Leonie has been getting up earlier and earlier. I sleep with ear plugs and eye mask until the get up and out of here music begins at 6am.

On waking in Puenta la Reina I found it was 6.10am. I also considered the relatively easy day ahead of us and the fact that I should contribute to local funds by buying a cafe con leche. So at 6.15, dressed but not packed I stumbled into the egg man from the night before and pàssed acrossed my euros in exchange for a very welcome coffee. While he was still making it Leonie appeared, bag on back and ready to walk on.

We have had it reinforced to us time and again that it is absolutely imperative to walk at your own pace and stop when you need to. With Leonie´s feet still in a delicate state it was good she got a decent head start. But we had also been speaking the last couple of nights to a Frenchman who had started in le Puy and he was now definitely óne with the camino´. I was inspired. Foreget about trying to pre-plan my heuvos so to speak and just take my time. So I lolly-gagged over my coffee, packed my things and started walking in my own sweet time (around 6.50!)

After 3hours or so I ate food I had bought for lunch by a lovely river and then an hour later saw some English speaking dutch guys and sat and had a drink with them. So it was only when I finally got to Estella that I caught up with Leonie. She had done very well but had extremely sore feet. so we checked in at the first albergue that we saw. The downstairs and courtyard were gorgeous. But when we got upstairs it was a bit mouldy and quite crowded. Never mind we were here now. So after going through our arrival routine of washing clothes and hanging out to dry, setting up bed space and having a shower, siesta was over and we hit the town. First stop a pharmacy for more foot stuff for Leonie (extra sanitary pads as she had now done two days in the one the lady had given her as a starter pair, plus antiseptic and a few more bandaids)

Then we wandered around what is a decent sized town and then found ourselves a nice bottle of vino and a seafood paella.

We got back to bed, borrowed ladders to access the very high bunks and went to bed.

Next thing I know it is four hours later and someone is poking me. I take off eye mask and ear plugs and am confronted by a (very nice) woman handing me up my back pack. Apparently after putting my phone on the charger I had left it on and some clot in NZ had been calling me and waking the whole dorm. Still don´t know who it was as they didnn´t leave a message but whoever you are....grrrrrrr!

I praticed sorry in as many languages as I could the next morning :(