Sep 7, 20173 min read

Day 6 – whats with the pants

Day 6. 21.5km. 6 hours. Estrella to Los Arcoss.

Last night my 3 bunk buddies were, 3, 60ish yo overweight french men Ala, Guy & ?. Sorry mum n dad they asked for my address so they can come and stay on the coast so i just gave them yours. They were apologising to me as one of them is the worst snorer. And after last night, worst doesnt even cover it. Anyway it was half way through them talking to me that i realised none of them had pants on. Eyes up! I was trapped with these three french men, trying to speak english to me all just in their undies!

Usual story we rendevous at 7am outside and hit the road. Joining us today is Jessica. Another australian. It was as we were walking into a service station for breakfast when Jess goes to me ‘righto wheres the pies & ice coffee?!’ that i knew we’d get along just fine. Both of us sat there joking in disgust that were having breaky at a servo! We hit it off instantly and boy did we have a great day together!

Everyone asks why are you walking the Camino, expecting some serious answer about finding yourself, may have experienced lost, wanting to work through things. Nah not jess and i. We were both like we cant really just say ‘to lose 10kg, get a tan and learn some spanish’. Doesnt really fly with the others. We were both like yep sweet we’ll lose weight together before no sooner admitti g we were both starving and just smashed a packet of chips and chorizo while walking without even stopping for a second.

We headed out of town and when i saw the sign ‘wine fountain –> ‘ i was done. Life doesnt get any better. We got to the fountain at 8am. But we didnt see the problem.

The rest of today was quite long, scenery didnt change too much, red soil, hills, vineyards and actually found it quite tiring, if it wasnt for the fact that Jess and i walked together and chatted non stop about home, how emotionally retarded australian men are compared to the guys weve met on the trail. People along the way probably thought we were crazy! We may have spent the day avoiding a certain guy too. Theres always one!! That also led to us ducking down an alley and hiding out behind a car later in the evening!

We made it into wherever we are about 230pm, the guys had heard of an austrian albergue so here we are. The sign of a massage therapist available for a donation- couldnt write my name down quick enough! They also had an ice bath foot spa in the coyrtyard so we all sat with our feet in it, under the grape vines overhead.

Then on my way up the 3 flights of stairs, ugh! The weird guy we had hid from came down the stairs with no pants and in front of everyone asked only me, ‘have you seen my pants?’ Whyyyyyy?!!

‘Diary support group’ time was called so We wrote our diaries before making our way to the town square next to an amazing cathedral, all the pilgrims gathered for a beer in the sun.it is just all so social, its just one big catch up every evening! I caught up with Emmanuel, an italian guy, who with his cute little dog, augusto, is walking the camino. We had a coffee together then went and checked out the cathedral. So much gold!! A little over done.

Our boys decided theyd cook us a german dinner for us. Which was delicious, kind of like mac n cheese really but any meal you dont cook is the best and it was with our whole ‘family’ so was great. We joked it was served up milatry style, no finess. But the conversations, the accents, the noise, it was just great! Good for the soul.

Whilst the boys were cooking, jess and i hung in the kitchen and met some new italian & french guys who asked us to joing them for dinner, (Dammit) so we’ve lined that up for tomorrow night. If we keep this up we wont have to worry about cooking all week! We all sat outside chatting on the veranda in the nice cool breeze until 1030pm when the german owner sent us to bed.

There were many conflicting views on what time we are waking up in the morn. 430am, 5am, 630am. Its a big day tomorrow, 30km! Cant say im really looking forward to it. Actually no i kind of am now that we’ve met a new bunch of guys to walk with. Will make for a different kind of day.

R. x