Thursday, 14th September.
International birdshit

People started getting up before 5:30am this morning - outrageous! They were noisy too. We left at about 7am, and as we exited Estella we passed a sevice station with a great big "sin plomo" sign! Everyone had a laugh at Ian.

So again it was the three of us, walking and talking. We talked about dreams, about alzheimers, about Belinda Carlisle, about country music and how evil it is (Barb is Miss Country Music), about Krzysztof Kieslowski, and stuff like that. At midday we arrived at Los Arcos.

We sat down in the shade of the church and spoke to some fellow pilgrims for a while. Then we made our way to the refugio. The lady taking our details at the refugio was babbling away at us in Spanish. It was clear from our expressions of complete incomprehension that we didn't have the foggiest what she was on about, but that didn't stop her, she kept on talking at a million miles an hour. We handed over our money and hoped for the best.

Another lady showed us to our bunks, and we then treated ourselves to a cold shower. Brrrrrrrrrrrr.

The eateries in Los Arcos were every shade of dodgy, so we ended up cooking for ourselves. When I say "we", I mean Noelle. She cooked some yummy omelettes...mmmmmm. And while we were sitting outside, a bird crapped right on Barb's head. Barb has now been crapped on in Canada, Mexico and Spain.