(Distance: 21.9 km time: 7 hours)
The day: Lights came on at 6am (Betsy was delighted, I was not). We packed up our back packs and went to get some coffee and some bread & jelly, then off we went at about 7:30 stopping only for a minute to take a picture of the mileage to Santiago. It was very chilly and we began in long sleeves & pants. The terrain was mostly farm land and wooded areas connected by small villages and roads. Even though it wasn't as steep as the first day, it was challenging in that the path often looked like a dried up creek bed with lots of rocks and was very hard on your feet. We made it to Zubiri and decided to call it a day leaving us short of our goal by 5.5 kms. We found a very nice albergue, cleaned up,washed our clothes and went to dinner at the albergue. Lights out at 10 pm once again. So far we have no blisters or sunburn ... our feet hurt but nothing unexpected.
The people: We kept running into our friends from SJPP... particularly Tina from Holland and Christina from Canada however stopping early put us with a bunch of new people. At dinner we met Natala from England, Roberta and her three young children from Italy (they have a summer home in Nice), a new Christina and Patrick from England. Patrick is an older gentleman and could tell a good story with the best of them. Later on in the conversation I was surprised to learn that he retired from IBM in 1992. Given his ability to engage it did not surprise me to learn he was in sales & marketing. Natala is a school teacher so naturally she and Betsy hit it off. We keep seeing other familiar faces but have not had the opportunity to meet them yet other than to wish them buen camino.
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| albergue at Roncesvalles |
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| leaving Roncesvalles |
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| walking through the town of Burguete |
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| a stop at a water fountain along the way |
