Another tough one but we finished strongly today (surfed in on a wave of endorphins). We started about 6am, grabbed a pastel de crema and a coffee at a late shutting bar - Spanish shopkeepers as a general rule don´t do early morning, they are not great with mid-morning either, you have a window of opportunity about 11 - 12 before they shut for siesta! They often don´t open again until 6-6.30, then they stay open late (bars until early hours). I´ve picked my bed, had a warm/cool shower and hung out the days washing. Just about siesta time. We are definately getting stronger (though it´s still painfull) and leaner, the flab is falling off; a couple more weeks of this and we´ll trade in the ´kegs´ for ´6 packs´!
The Rioja is gently undulating country of rocky, fertile red soils. All of the low lying country is planted with Tempranillo grapes, it´s almost harvest time; the vitners are busy cutting off the large bunches of small dark grapes growing along the bottom of the vines and throwing them onto the soil - only the top bunches with the highest sugar content are used in the making of Rioja wines (get a bottle from uncle Dan´s tonight and toast Los hermanos Australianos!
Names are not used much so far on the camino, it´s all nicknames- La Madrillena1, La Madrillena 2, The Italian with a beard, The Liverpool guy etc. The Liverpool guy invited us to his birthday party tonight. We met him crossing the Pyrenees, he was hobbling along with a bad knee, later we crossed his path and both his knee and ankle were strapped up and he ended up walking much of Navarra in thongs! He´s improving but his hips are now playing up but he´s determined to get there - Spaniards would say "tiene grandes cojones". Just to get some gender balance in (you can tell I´ve done the online taining!) let me mention the German Angel, an angelic slip of a girl that is up early every morning and powers on all day, usually staying ahead of the pack, a pocket dynamo. One more character, the bearded Italian, a man with a deceptively languid stride; after following him all day we realised that he is very experienced as he picks out the sweet spot in any trail like a virtuoso picking out notes on a keyboard (the YoYoMa of the camino), it´s virtually impossible to keep up with him. time for a nap.
Many lycra clad cyclists are joining th camino now. They get second preference on the camino. We walkers look down on them as a bunch of dilletantes. In i944 the Chinese Red Army under MaoTseTung undertook one of the great military marches from central China to north-west China, it´s called The Long March and lets face it it wouldn´t quite as impressive if it was called The Long Bike Ride! In the words of that great philosopher Jack Black "You´re not hard core unless you live hard core" Time for beer and tapas (ps 2 aussies just came in, I did the translating for them - they just walked 50km TODAY (talk about hard core !!!!!!!!!
The Rioja is gently undulating country of rocky, fertile red soils. All of the low lying country is planted with Tempranillo grapes, it´s almost harvest time; the vitners are busy cutting off the large bunches of small dark grapes growing along the bottom of the vines and throwing them onto the soil - only the top bunches with the highest sugar content are used in the making of Rioja wines (get a bottle from uncle Dan´s tonight and toast Los hermanos Australianos!
Names are not used much so far on the camino, it´s all nicknames- La Madrillena1, La Madrillena 2, The Italian with a beard, The Liverpool guy etc. The Liverpool guy invited us to his birthday party tonight. We met him crossing the Pyrenees, he was hobbling along with a bad knee, later we crossed his path and both his knee and ankle were strapped up and he ended up walking much of Navarra in thongs! He´s improving but his hips are now playing up but he´s determined to get there - Spaniards would say "tiene grandes cojones". Just to get some gender balance in (you can tell I´ve done the online taining!) let me mention the German Angel, an angelic slip of a girl that is up early every morning and powers on all day, usually staying ahead of the pack, a pocket dynamo. One more character, the bearded Italian, a man with a deceptively languid stride; after following him all day we realised that he is very experienced as he picks out the sweet spot in any trail like a virtuoso picking out notes on a keyboard (the YoYoMa of the camino), it´s virtually impossible to keep up with him. time for a nap.
Many lycra clad cyclists are joining th camino now. They get second preference on the camino. We walkers look down on them as a bunch of dilletantes. In i944 the Chinese Red Army under MaoTseTung undertook one of the great military marches from central China to north-west China, it´s called The Long March and lets face it it wouldn´t quite as impressive if it was called The Long Bike Ride! In the words of that great philosopher Jack Black "You´re not hard core unless you live hard core" Time for beer and tapas (ps 2 aussies just came in, I did the translating for them - they just walked 50km TODAY (talk about hard core !!!!!!!!!
hahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaLOL
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