Camino de Santiago, Day 10: Los Arcos to Viana

Olive trees

Our one roommate at the hostel felt the need to wake up at 6 am and repack her whole bag which must have had 10,000 zippers.  Or at least it sounded that way.  The zipping sound and the crinkling of plastic bags is of particular irritation to me in the morning.  It’s difficult to share such close space with different people every morning.  When I’m so tired, it’s hard to be understanding.  Many people have one month to complete the Camino for work reasons.  So for them, there is urgency every morning to get up at the crack and go.  I am glad we don’t have that pressure.

We met Zana from Latvia on the way out of Los Arcos and walked several miles with her.  Our pace was the same because she too had walked that extra 12 kilometers from Villamayor de Monjardin to Los Arcos and she was hurting.  When we arrived at a village we all had coffee.  She is a lawyer, young, well-traveled and fun.  She is the first (and probably the last) Latvian we will meet on the Camino.  While enjoying coffee, we met Anders from the Netherlands as well as several Americans and a couple that used to live in San Francisco.

The walk today was full of small hills – lots of ups and downs.  Vineyards and olive groves are everywhere.

My feet were really hurting.  Whine-y, but true.

We arrived separately in Viana and Jamie got us beds in the Municipal hostel.  Six euros a night.  Triple bunk beds.  We shared our room with six French people and Kase, the Dutch physicist turned art student.  Jamie met Peter from Denmark who is walking the Camino for the second time in six months because he loved the first time so much.  He later invited us to stay with him in the countryside of Denmark.

Viana is most notable for being the burial place of Cesare Borgia whom I knew nothing about till arriving there and doing some research.

We walked to a restaurant and I had a beer with lemonade which appears to be the favorite drink of Germans.  We sat in the sun.  Sitting felt so good.  Soon we met Anna, an older Finnish woman doing the Camino for the fourth year in a row.

Then against my will, it was nap-time.  Could barely stay awake.  And then dinner out.  Spain does not seem to be big on vegetables so the vegetarian diet is barely cutting it.  All I want is a huge bowl of scrambled eggs.   So tired.  It seems four days of walking is about where I hit a wall.

Today we walked 19.5 kilometers (12 miles).

Today’s Photos: