Walking Day Six - Puente La Reina to Estella

Morning is cool and brisk. I wake up and find Tom shivering in our dorm room. He slept outside with Roger and Denise but he doesn´t quite have the gear and early morning is cool no matter what the day temperature ends up being. Roger has once again prepared coffee for us on his "pocket rocket". We drink up, nibble on some bread and jam and prepare once more to hit the trail. Today´s destination is Estella, 21 kilometers away. It is still dark as we start walking. Roger and Denise and Jose and Maite are prepared for early morning walks. They are wearing headlamps which light the way and Tom and I are grateful to follow. The rising sun doesn´t take long in making its appearance and soon starts heating up the morning.

The camino is now winding its way through gorgeous green vineyards with laden with baby grapes. Olive trees are also now starting to dot the vista. We continue with our jovial conversations about noises in the night. Although, today there are fewer jokes since Tom and Roger two of the major contributors were outside during the night. Nonetheless, we find endless humor and silliness to be major topics of conversation. All the translating, however, is begin to make my head spin. Jose will ask me a question in Spanish for Roger and I turn to him and ask him in Spanish instead of English or vice-a-versa. Everyone thinks this is hilarious.

We make our usual morning stop at the first open bar for coffee and breakfast and to buy a bocadillo (spanish sandwich) for the road. Aside from walking, our other activity seems to center around food: either finding some or eating some. At this point in our journey, it is quite the necessity. Our bodies are burning up quite a bit of fuel. I have had to remove a strap from my backpack to fashion a belt. My shorts were falling off and flashing my underpants, something I was always bugging the boys to stop doing. I still don´t get how it´s fashionable to walk with your pants falling down your backside. To me it is just really uncomfortable (although right now I take great pleasure in the fact that I´ve lost enough weight for it to happen.)

(to be continued later)