Familiar Faces

Up at 4:15, on the trail by 5:00, we were ready for the day.  Today is Sunday which means most stores are closed in Spain.   This causes trouble for us, but also means we eat at restaurants.   As we arrived in the first town of the day, Carrion, we were fortunate to find a cafe open for breakfast at 6am on a Sunday!

The reason for our good fortune was a wedding party from the night before was still partying at the bar/cafe.  We ordered breakfast and coffee for Marion that always gets her going.  After 45 minutes,  we were back on the trail and seeing a lot of familiar faces from a week prior.

With our longer days, we are now keeping pace with the 20 somethings.  The Camino isn't a race,  but it still feels good to keep pace.   Another change was that there was a big group of pilgrims walking with us.  For the past few days, we hsd barely seen pilgrims on the trail.  Today, there was a long line of pilgrims both in front of us snd behind us.

We are in the "Meseta" region now which is known for long, straight and flat trails, but with hot weather.   Today was only mid 90's and we would finish before it would get to 85.  We finished 18 miles in about 7 hours with two long stops.  We are proud of ourselves.

In planning our trip, I thought that 16 miles would be our maximum for any one day.  We now have done 3 days in a row of 18 miles or more.  Gisela,  Juliana and Marion are doing great!  Granted, it is not pain free.  I have developed tendinitis,  Julie and Gisela have a couple blisters snd Marion has ankle pain, but we are troopers.