Day 10. Villatuerte to Villamayor de Monjardin -12.9 km.

Ten days of walking and blister free and our knees are holding up.

I send my big back pack instead of carrying it to the next stop.  So I have been using a flimsy nylon YWCA bag to hold my raincoat, camera, iPad, bottled water and snacks.   It is uncomfortable as it just pulls my shoulders and it is also now ripping apart.  I have duct taped it, safety pinned it until I got to a big town to buy a proper day pack.  We finally found a sports store today in Estella and I bought a daypack.  Already my shoulders feel better.

The walk today was no cupcake walk either.  Again the scenery was gorgeous. Every town has a beautiful church, the trail is well marked and water fountains are in every town.  The heat is awful and we have started to cool off by pouring water on our heads at fountain stops.  We are told this is unusual to be this hot in Sept.  It was cooler in August.

We met a Belgian guy today who has been walking for 47 days and he started from his own home.  He said he has walked in the beginning with no one around so getting to the busyness of walking in Spain is not to his liking.  

The highlight of today's trail is the wine fountain.  Instead of a water fountain you  can get as much wine as you want from a fountain.  A nearby winery provides it.

It is 10 pm. and the church bell just rang.  I love hearing the church bells ring.  They ring at least every half hour.  It is a warm night and the pilgrims are all sitting outside the steps of the alburgue sharing stories.  Dick is having a great time, playing guitar or his harmonica.  This is the second night he has gotten hold of a guitar in the alburgue.  We had a great dinner tonight.  Finally some vegetables, it was a ratatouille dish.  We also attended a meditation session.  This alburgue is run by a Dutch ecumenical congregation.

You can not reserve at public alburgues but can on private ones.  This stop is in a small town and in demand because the next stop is 12 km away.  I could not get any reservations so,just hoped for the best.  We got here and everything was booked.  Our options were to stay put and sleep outside or take the bus to the next town but all hotels there are booked too.  We opted to sleep out and figured it would be a great experience.  Then I saw Tracy and John who we had met in a previous hostel.  They had booked a 3 bed private room and offered me the 3rd bed.  Dick is sleeping outside.  They are my camino angel today!