Caucasus again

Leg 5 Puente la Reine to Estella

After an initial stroll out of Puente la Reine, we soon encountered a nasty steep climb which seemed never-ending. Still when we got to the top we got a lovely view of A-12 motorway. Buen Camino!! 

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Our first stop was in a village called Maneru where we sat and had an alfresco breakfast. Fresco being the operative word – when the breeze got up it was ffffff-freezing. Still, having been fed and watered we were in a better place for our Pilgrim’s plod to Estella
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Approaching Ciraugui

2 miles on, we went through a beautiful old village called Ciraugui – it was positively ancient and brimming with character. A perfect place for filming something like Game Of Thrones; which incidentally, I’m now not up-to-date with – so no spoilers on the comments part of this, or Facebook please.

The clouds began to clear, and weather soon became perfect for walking. Plenty of sunshine with occasional cloud cover and a good breeze to help us not realise how burnt we might be getting.  Next up was lunch in Lorca – another hilltop village. We shared a table with 2 blokes who’d left their wives back in Miami – but of course they weren’t really American. They simply weren’t loud enough!! One was originally from Galicia (Spain), where the Camino ends; and the other from Aachen (near Cologne). The latter was an Allemania Aachen supporter, so I got to talk German footie for a while 😊.

As we left Lorca we walked and chatted briefly with a guy from Tampere in Finland. For a relatively young Finn, his English was poor; but certainly not as bad as his terrible teeth. I mentally nick-named him “Toothless Teemu from Tampere”!

 A few miles on we found the “Gardenzen” – a cosmic hippyesque rest stop that had been developed over the last 2 years by a young lad. Fruit and drinks available in a terrific garden where you can just chill out. Not set prices – “just a donation please”. Right on! “Vegetable rights and peace man” as Neil Young One would say.

Gardzen!

We’d made really good quick progress, so had a lengthy stop in Villatuarte which we thought was a couple of miles short of our destination, Estella. Looking like a couple of old itinerants, we had a nice nap in a park; doing our level best to frighten off and children who might have the temerity to want to play there. Actually, there weren’t any; but I’d got a pair of toxic smelly feet, as was more than prepared to use them!

And so the final push for the day into Estella. Just a mere stroll round into the next valley – or so we thought. On and on and on the bloody path went and still we couldn’t see the place. What felt like 6 miles, as opposed to 3, later we found civilisation and hauled ourselves up the unbelievably steep “Prison Bridge” over the Rio Ega and into what was a lovely old town.

Prison Bridge - Estella

Still a place with political troubles

We had a fine meal at a place Café Mundo – run by a Dutch family who’d come there over 20 years ago. Each of the diners were allocated a flag to take to their table; and that was to be their identifier for the evening. We got the red, white and green of Hungary – highly appropriate as “me name’s Pig I’m very ‘ungry” (obviously said in a thick Brummie accent). Top tucker was had, so a big thumbs up for Café Mundo. Clearly, absolutely no Dutch bias whatsoever from Cate, of courshh!

On getting back to our room, we realised that we had lost our Pilgrim’s Credencios – the passports that you get stamped along the Camino.

Tensions rose!!

I reckoned it was probably in Lorca that we’d left them. With muchos pequeno Espanyol, I managed to establish with the bar owner in Lorca (over the phone) that they had been found and taken to the Residencia Municipales Estella – whatever that is. We reckoned that might be the Municipal Pilgrims Hostel Estella, which would have just closed for the evening. Arse!

So to bed – with an ambience between us akin to Roy Keane and Patrick Viera having a little pre-match chat in the player’s tunnel. Not a good end to what had largely been a good day.