Day 3
Trinidad de Arre- Puente La Reina-31.6 Km
Headed off at first light, sans breakfast, just behind the singing German. Unhappy feet , but the wonderful morning stopped me dwelling on that. Sorry that we were not stopping in Pamploma as it looked like the sort of place that would be fun to explore. Took 2 wrong turns, mea culpa to one of them, only set us back about 20 mins.
Soon we were beyond Pamploma and Cizur Manor and heading for Alto del Pedron- a mere 450m climb. There were a lot more trekkies (as Dave called them) on the path today, Pamploma is a popular starting point with Spanish peregrinos. Alto del Pedron, the focus of today is in the centre of a vast wind farm as well as being the site of a really beautiful large metal sculpture dedicated to the Camino and its participants.
By the time I had passed the peak my fluid intake was in excess of 1 lire/hr (apple brandy etc. will do that to you- learn). Going downhill, the first 300m as well as being very steep was also a mixture of boulders and stones and not appreciated by my ever more delicate feet. After that the path was pretty good and it was just a matter of keeping my thirst happy. Dave had now started to get some painful twinges in his left lower leg, so both of us were quite happy to c reach Puente.
The albergue, run by a religious order, had the benifit of a large garden, so we were able soak up the sun for the afternoon admiring the storks as the glided overhead and occassionaly hobbling to the slot machine to replinish stocks of awful San Miguel. Already the P menu is the obvious reason for plenery indulgences, but lets be fair, no one could sin that much. This evening the cafe itself more than made up for the menu, especially as I was "liquered" on the house. Dave must lack the look of THIRST,clearly tattooed on my forhead, as when we returned to the dorm on of our roomies approached me with a bottle of apple brandy and insisted I sample a generous sample, I obliged three times. It is important to build friendship between nations and I was just doing my bit
Is this a walk or a pub crawl.
Funnily enough I did not manage to get to sleep until about three hours after lights out