Pictures to go with Yesterday´s Post and Today

This is the bridge from Puente La Reina.

This is a picture of our Irish friend, Aiden, who is studying theology to become a priest. We passed through a town that has a free wine fountain. We agreed that this would be an epic failure and bum central in Ireland and USA.

This is the toy I got (we found real kinder eggs today with the chocolate shell).

The tape is to prevent blisters from my shoes. But I switched to flip-flops. Much more comfortable ... or less uncomfortable anyway.

Today:

No pictures. My mom said she was expecting that we would take the bus on Sundays since we´re a little short on time to make the whole Camino. Since we didn´t realize this was an expectation, we took the bus today. We walked from Viana to Logroño (about 10 km) then took the bus to Burgos. Its quite a trip. 2 hours on the bus. But my foot is still in rough shape. We decided to skip the bike concept. I´ll just continue to take it easy until Ian gets here with shoes. Everytime I go into a zapateria (shoe store) and ask if they have my size 15 or 49.5 in Europe) they just laugh at me. So I´m gonna rock the flippie floppies for about 10 more days. Its not that bad except that its cold. Oh well. I think taking a bus is way more complicated than walking ... easier on the feet, but more complicated. we had to walk across Logroño (30 min) for their bus station. And then the bus stopped somewhere in Burgos, it didn´t look like a bus station, but we didn´t want to overshoot, so we just got off and started walking in the direction we figured we should. Then I asked someone for directions. We were headed the right way. But his directions weren´t clear, so we asked a couple more people and made our way and found some of the Camino markers. That was a very nice sign.

But we had to walk for about 1 hr 15 min from the bus till we found a hostel. And it's kind of wierd. Its a little off the Camino. Its in Burgos. Its free. But it locks all the time and you have to ring the grumpy hostel (or should I say hostile) guy to let us back in. Because I didn´t want to bother or see him again, Noah stayed while I looked for food so he could let me in. And there is no kitchen here. But I found some cold cuts and bread (and Kinder huevos!) and stuff for breakfast too. AND I found sliced cheese! It feels like I haven´t had cheese in forever (sorry Mary). So I´m pretty excited about that. But since the place locks and it's cold, Noah and I are going to lay low for the afternoon/evening.

Last night we had sausage, mushrooms, bell pepper, corn, tomato, and beans. The French people were very surprised that Americans knew about the Camino and that we could cook. They were just boiling eggs. We had a good meal last night.

We had some good maps for Navara (a state in Spain?) but we just left Navara today, so now our maps are no good. I´m hoping there is something in the hostel we can use. I saw a little pamphlet with the 5 things everyone should know and one of them is to carefully plan your route and where you will be each day ... I think that's dumb on this kind of trip. We just go until we are hungry and our body hurts. Then we get lunch and then we feel better enough to go to the next town. It's just too bad when the next town is way farther than the sign says!

I think that's it ... Oh, and I added a new profile picture on facebook special for a friend who likes to make fun of me for all my shirtless profile pictures. I have not been walking around without a shirt, I just took it off for the picture. But he likes to call me the ¨shirtless wonder¨so I decided to take the title international!

I´m out!

Have You Ever Seen a Baby that Hates the Car Seat?

... and it arches its back and cries once it sees the seat? I think that's how my feet feel about my shoes. I wish the Camino was flip flop friendly.
We are in Punta la Reina and have crossed over the bridge my mom made note of ... only to turn back because we had passed all the hostels and didn´t want to walk to the next town. We washed out clothes and used the dryer which mostly dried our clothes. We also went to a store for an onion and tomato, and another one for a tube of cookies that look a lot like Hit Cookies ... that's going to be breakfast. We also got some kind of sausage at a meat market. We´re not real sure what kind it is. We are going to make lunch today and eat out for dinner instead, so we can watch the U.S. play England. I really hope the U.S. wins.





Today was super muddy. We also saw a lot of windmills (you can kind of see one in the background above). There was also a shrine to the pilgrims (the picture is below).

The first picture is a picture of me with my pants pulled up under my poncho. I start the day with some windbreaker pants and take them off when I get too warm. Every time I take them off I sing the I Wear No Pants song from the Dockers commercial. I can´t figure out how to get it down here with this text.

We spent a lot of time up in the mountains-hills today. It is amazing how they farm every bit of land they can. There were some crops up high.

Annnnd I´m starving. So, I´m going to work with Noah to see what kind of lunch we can whip up out of the mystery sausage and veggies.

Hasta Luego

Following Along

Not long after I go to bed tonight, Seamus and Noah will probably wake up and once again hit the trail. I’m grateful to David M. Gitlitz & Linda Kay Davidson for putting together a fabulous book that includes all sorts of intriguing details about the Camino. Through their book I can follow along the boys’ paths and learn some fun things. For example, just a few tiny towns beyond Cizur Menor, where they will begin their journey in the morning, they’ll pass a fountain of water for thirsty travelers near a hamlet called Zariquiégui. Supposedly, St. James once appeared at the spot to give water to a tormented and parched pilgrim. If they get far enough, they will see a neat statue of Saint James at the merging of two major Camino routes. A bit after that, they will have crossed over a pretty Romanesque bridge while exiting the city of Puente La Reina (Bridge of the Queen) - the same bridge that’s on the cover of their Pilgrim Credentials.

The authors of this book hiked the Camino for the first time in 1974 … when they saw NO other pilgrims along the way and very few albergues with beds to sleep on. For their 1996 pilgrimage, they came across hundreds of others on the Camino! The renewed interest is a curious phenomenon … 200,000 pilgrims are expected in Santiago this year! So, the boys should see more and more people as they get closer to Santiago de Compostela.