Day 7: Puente la Reina to Estella

"Why does it always rain on me
Even when the sun is shining
I can´t avoid the lightning"
                          - Travis

December 21, 2010:
If I had to use one word to describe today´s 22k walk, it would be "unpleasant".  If I could use more than one word, I´d keep "unpleasant" and pad the rest with expletives.  There are days that test your sanity and your tolerance for misery, and today was one of them.

It started with the fact that I finally got some pilgrim comany in Puente la Reina...five others, in fact.  And while it was great having people to talk to again, the novelty wore off once the lights were on in the dorm and we all took turns keeping each other awake through snoring.  So, the next morning, with two solid hours of sleep under my belt, I started off.  It was a cold, damp morning, and the first two hours of the day were spent walking along the side of a highway, looking for an ocassional arrow to re-assure me that I was still going in the right direction.  Once the camino veered away from the highway, and onto footpaths through the many hills around here, the rain started in.  First a mist, than a trickle, then a torrent.  It was at exactly this point that I met an old friend....the Via Trajana.  The Via Trajana was the old roman road that liked Bordeaux in France with Astorga, in Western Spain.  After two thousand years of decay and neglect, it is more of an obstacle than it is a road.  5km in, trying to negotiate my way down a steep incline on the via, the rock under my right foot got loose under the mud and I took a very bad fall.  Got three very large, very painful bruises all along the left side of my ribcage to show for it.  I spent the rest of the remaining 12k struggling to take deep breaths and experimenting on my clothing to see exactly how much rain it could hold on to (I figure about 5-6 pounds).

Arrived in Estella wet, muddy, miserable and thouroughly dejected.  I know for a fact that the next three or four stages, between here and Santo Domingo can be just as muddy, just as miserable in bad weather.  Not sure I can take another day like this.  That´s a lie - I´m positive I can´t take one more day like this.  If it´s raining tomorrow, I´m not walking....period.  Hey, I´ve already done this camino once...I´ve got nothing to prove.

Having said all that, the Albergue in Estella was extremely comfortable.  Warm, anyway, and run by a very nice volunteer named Alva.  A second pilgrim, on his way back from Santiago joined us later in the evening...he was every bit as muddy as I was.  The three of us had a grand old time exchanging horror stories of our camino time, and filling each other in on what to expect in the next stage.  I don´t think either of us liked what we heard.