Day 6 - Puente la Reina to Estella

Day 6 - Puente la Reina to Estella

Cloudy with sunny periods

Perfecto! We have finally found our cell provider in Estella. Now with active data, we can always use Google maps to check our current location and where the albergues are at the end of the day. There is suggestion that the pilgrims should leave technology at home in order to fully enjoy the exprience. I would not be one of them and judging from the cell phone usage that I can see, that is not happening among pilgrims.

We had an early start today. We have learned our lesson and have picked up how to enjoy the Camino; i.e. by not having to rush, be at the albergue early, relax and have the additional bonus of picking our territory in the dormitorio if we can. We had a good day walking and did 22 km to Estella in about 7 hours, fitting in the lunch along the way. 

The very early start was by accident, not that I am complaining. A couple of Brazilians in the room started packing at 5:15 am. I was awake anyway but would usually not push the issue until there is quite a bit of movement. Today I thought there were a couple of guys and they have been doing it for 15 minutes already. I got up. It was only 5:30 am. Turned out they are leaving together. Gigi was awake too so it make sense to just go for it. We had breakfast and left at 6:45 am.

We left Puente la Reina going over the Puente Romantico. We had a picture taken and then left. Hopefully that doesn't mean the romance is over.

There are a little bit of up and down today but mostly flat. And finally, the sun is out. We don't want it to be too hot with the sun but it surely beats raining.

We arrived in Estella relatively early and had time to explore. We joined a free tour given by Grade 5 kids. It is a school program that gives the kids a chance to present in front of people. They alternate presenting in Spanish and English and obviously we joined the English group. Each of the kids present one of the places of interest. Some of the English I did not get but some already have excellent English.

We decided to walk to the market across town and get supplies for lunch the next day. That is where we stumbled upon first Vodafone (who ran out of sim cards???) and then Movistar. We didn't realise that Estella is big enough to have stores of all the big providers (including Orange). At Movistar, a local lady jumped the queue looking greatly distressed so we let her. We got our sim cards finally after half an hour. We were thinking that if we didn't let her through, she would have exploded having to wait for an extra half an hour. We ended up with no grocery for lunch but I am happy.

Walking the Camino is not just a physical challenge, or mental toughness, it is also a test of human conditions. Sharing the trail is easy, there is enough room for everyone and people who walk tend to be nice anyway. Sharing a room, bathroom and showers is a different story. How do you share a dormitorio with 10 to 20 perfect strangers? How do you deal with annoying people doing all kinds of stuff that affect others, like talking at bed time, noisily moving around, noisy packing etc.? The answer is you don't, there is no right or wrong ways to do the Camino. You just have to respect what they want to do. You probably will not share the same room again anyway.