A Gentle Day (JULY 12, 2015)

Villamayor de Monjardín to Los Arcos 14.2 km 21,093 steps

We woke up, packed up and had a really enjoyable breakfast with one of the hospitaleros. They have like six of them at this Albergue and some of them stay for a month or more. It was really nice here. Dinner was delicious and breakfast had a wide variety of choices. 

Leea finally agreed to ship her pack. I think it is a big acceptance to do that. It is hard to, as she said, walk with someone twice your age when she is carrying a pack and you are not. I'm proud of her for shipping it. I have to admit that I didn't hav the humility or common sense to do it both times my knee hurt. I might have avoided two five to seven day forced rest stops, if I hadn't been so prideful. 

We had a lovely walk to Los Arcos. The scenery and vistas were mind  

Vista

boggling. Once into Los Arcos we had a small lunch in the Plaza waiting for the Albergue to open. Then we got our showers, did laundry and had a nice nap. We spent the day writing, reading, and wandering about town.
Shortly after we checked into the Albergue and got our beds, we got our first room mate. He was an older Japanese man and was the noisiest person either of us had ever encountered. Every move he made, and they were constant, was accompanied by a sound effect. He was in constant motion in and out the door, which he never closed entirely, but in such a way as to make a large noise. Then the door which hadn't been completely closed would softly bang with each breeze of air. When he finally napped, he snored. lol it got to be so funny we had to stifle our giggles.  

Sculpture in Los Arcos

 Our next two roommates were young Irish guys who stayed in Pamplona a couple of days to party and run with the bulls. They said San Fermin made the Irish celebration of Saint Paddy's Day look puny.  I asked him if it was scary to run with the bulls. He said the trick to running with the bulls is to be at the City Hall, which is a plaza. He said he had his camera on a selfie stick, stood off to the side, here come the bulls, there go the bulls, then run into the bull ring behind them. Hehehe  I think the Americans could learn something from the Irish. At least two Americans were seriously injured. 

The Municipal Albergue has a person who does massages, so we wandered over there to get Leea's feet massaged. He wasn't there. They said he is always there but not yesterday. That's the second time a massage therapist who is always there wasn't. Hopefully we will run into a place where one is present, but until then it is rest and ice for the feet. The inserts she got at the Decathalon store seem to be helping. 

We were jonesing some home made paella for dinner, but the places on the plaza just had the frozen paella. We were discussing this and the lady who runs the Albergue told us where we could have home made paella. She even called and made us a reservation. It takes some time to make real paella. So we wandered around town trying to follow the directions she had given us, so we would be able to find the place at seven. We were in successful. lol

While we were wandering Leea spotted an ATM and tried to extract some cash. She asked for the instructions in English, pushed all the buttons, it spit her card out without the cash. We're hoping it just rejected the whole transaction and not that it recorded the transaction and kept the money. It wasn't out of cash because the guy after us got cash. We did learn later that another girl had the same experience we did. So it's probably just a malfunction. 

We couldn't find our way to the restaurant, so we had to go back to the Albergue and ask for directions again. This time she took us outside and pointed. It was really easy to find. When we walked into the restaurant there were six older Spanish ladies sitting at a table playing cards. They all turned to stare at us for a while, then lost interest and went back to playing cards. Leea said we had been judged and found wanting. ; )

The dinner was delicious. We went back to the Albergue and got ready for bed. Good night