Lost In The Fields (JULY 11, 2015)

Puenta Reina to Villatuerta July 8, 2015, 25 km, 37,283 Steps

We had a lovely buffet breakfast at the hotel and then headed out a little later than usual. We weren't sure where or when we would stop. Leea is having  foot problems and we are hoping we will be able to continue however slowly.   

The Queen's Bridge

  So I tell her I think today is a pretty easy day with a few little ups and downs. I guess a forgot that monstrous climb towards the beginning up the hill to the fence with the stick crosses. She harassed me about that the rest of the day. 

We thought about stopping at Lorca, but got a very bad vibe when we arrived there. There are two bar albergues right across the narrow little street from one another. And I remember from Caminos past that it felt a little like a standoff between the two. We went in one bar and were roundly ignored for fifteen minutes, which seemed more like three hours with the rap music at high volume drowning out lucid thought. So we went across the street where the rap players were very nice, but the owner kept walking by and glaring at us. And here the noise pollution was bad heavy metal. Yikes. It was like being caught in he battle of bad loud music. We decided to trudge along further. 

Sometime after we left Lorca we came to a sign on a green metal pole saying to turn right. It did not look like any official marker or even a yellow arrow. It looked like one of those signs that are trying to misdirect pilgrims, so they end up at someone's private Albergue or restaurant. A fellow pilgrim in front of us was going straight, so we did too.  

After a while, we were pretty sure we were going the wrong way because we didn't see any markers, arrows, or signs. So we turned around and walked back and took the turn indicated by the sign.  We had lost sight of the pilgrim ahead of us so I have no idea where he ended up.  

Cirauqui

 We finally walked into Villatuerta and found the Casa Magica. I have always loved that Albergue. Leea liked it almost immediately and pronounced it her favorite Albergue so far. The beds are all single beds, not bunk beds, and have good mattresses. We ended up in a six bedroom by ourselves. Leea couldn't believe their place wasn't full. Seven other people wandered in later in the day, so there were nine of us for dinner. The place has beds for 42 people!

Anyway, we had an incredibly good vegetarian dinner, including a vegetarian paella. There were three people from Isreal, an Australian, an Irish guy, and two French women. One of the Israelis, Ron, was celebrating his 50th birthday by doing the Camino and that day was his birthday. So we had an impromptu birthday party. It was a fun communal dinner with lots of frivolous funny stuff, getting acquainted, and some seriously deep personal stuff. We got to bed late and got up late, about 7:30 am, had some café and postres and started out. This still one of my favorite albergues.