Today is Saturday the 21st of September and we are taking a much needed break in the old pilgrimage town of Estella. Yesterday the stage from Zirauki to here was a rough one for me, with lots of sharp ups and downs and long stretchs of old Roman roads. While historic - we've never walked before on 2,000 year old roads- they were a bitch to walk on, being filled with broken cobbled sections, potholes and tippy stones for miles on end. The scenery around us was all dramatic hills and long valleys stretching away in rural elegance.
However Sam developed a series of pains in his left leg- tight hamstring follwed by a sore lateral quad and then an ache in the hip joint. In the lonely mind of this long distance walker, I immediately went to thoughts of hip replacement and aborted Camino but Joan brought reality back by recounting all the similar woes suffered by our predecessors like Dolly and Dick, who are a couple of weeks ahead of us but post or email us.
The weather is forecast to be in the 80's for the next week so we have decided to skip a couple of really nasty hilly stages and jump ahead to Logrono, about 50 miles. We catch a bus tomorrow mornjng and will plan short stages according to the weather and terrain. We will be moving into the meseta soon (think Kansas for flatness) and will really have to watch our hydration.
Here are some phoros of the.walk into Estella and the town itself.
