Day 6 – El Camino – Puente La Reina to Estella

Puente La Reina to Estella, happy days! Aaron rejoined us on the walk! We went to the post office in the morning, called Correos.

There is apparently a special pilgrim’s rate to send stuff ahead to Santiago de Compostella, our final destination on this walk.

Aaron’s big backpack with 10kg of weight did not cost any more than 9€ to send ahead. What’s more they will hold the bag for one month, enough time for us to complete the trek and pick up the bag.

We also had time to go to a bar for breakfast, since the post office did not open until 8h30. The bar was covered with Australiana stuff, check it out below.

So we crossed the bridge in town, where there also was a tap to fill up with drinking water. The night before I had a watery movement and now I am starting to purify all my drinking water, even out of a tap – better to be safe than sorry!

Today’s walk was estimated to be about 21km, point to point. We started off strong and made five kilometres in the first hour. There was a very steep ascent which hit us hard.

As we continued to walk, there were vineyards to our left and possibly vegetables to our right. Directly on our path, perhaps three kilometres away, a village began to rise out of the landscape. It was a very amazing moment for me.

We stopped there to eat some fruit. Here is a selfie of Aaron and I eating apples.

Moving along, I spotted a strange formation of pebbles in the distance. Turned out to be a map of the world. It is really nice to find these hidden gems along the track, it keeps the walk interesting.

We continued to walk, once we were about eight kilometres away from our destination, we decided to stop in at the next village. We made record time again! I had music playing from my phone and I was singing along quite freely and loudly. Since there were not a lot of pilgrims at the time, I could let my lungs cry out. It is sort of a distraction from the pain in my feet, and also a stress-relief.

After we reached the last village before our destination, there was a sign that said 2.4km to Estella. We thought we could smash it out in under 30 minutes. The path continued and continued. And at one point I had thought that I took a wrong turn somewhere. The walk was longer than an hour and certainly much further than 2.4km.

We reached Estella and headed to the nearest albergue. ANFAS happened to be the closest one, and probably the nicest choice we have made so far. The principle mission of this particular albergue is to support mentally disabled people, locals or travellers. Our host was a mentally disabled young man who was so kind and so generous. He showed us around the hostel and made us feel very welcome.

We are making dinner tonight. What’s on the menu? Pasta, tomato sauce with embutidos and champignons.