Day 4 Los Arcos - Viana 18km

I have to start the journal entry again today about my feet since each toe has it's own pulse and I look like I am going for a pedicure I am using that much gauze in an attempt to stop the weeping. Raya is amused watching me tape my feet – thankfully it amuses someone and we caught her shoving small pieces of gauze between her own toes. Nick wants me to photograph the blisters for memories sake but I am not yet ready to see the funny side just yet.

Now I have had the average blister before on my feet – or as a child when you didn't wear shoes and ran around on the hot ground. Nothing, absolutely NO blister I have EVER had compares to the blisters overtaking my feet now.

Nick and I have the camino debate of boots or sandals. Teva's will allow for more air flow but have less arch support and a thinner sole on rough ground. We consult the maps, see the steep ascent to Nuestra Senora de Poyo and boots it is.

We leave the albergue in silence and honestly I was in very low spirits. Having to start the day in so much pain and knowing you have no option but to keep walking on is a real kick in the teeth plus we didn't get a caffeine hit before we left. I was cursing under my breath. This time yesterday my feet were in perfect condition and one day of pushing ourselves has created a wealth of problems. - and it's only day 4.

People say the Camino reflects life. The beginning people rush through, laughing at suggestions to pace themselves, travelling at a reckless pace,making silly mistakes and being overconfident.”What do you mean I will regret my actions – I am young and fit with energy and the walk is mainly on flat ground and gorgeous scenery – too easy” would be the words of the 'young' pilgrim.

The middle of the camino -the dessert 'meseta' represents middle age and the 'mid life crisis' that is meant to happen. The barrenness of the landscape that spreads for kilometres without trees, shade or water and the complete nothingness of that stretch only leaves a person with his/her own thoughts to contemplate. This internal contemplation coupled with physical exhaustion can be overwhelming and reveal more of the truer self than one may like to see.

The final stage of the camino is meant to represent old age where the weary pilgrim has learnt the lessons of the camino (life) accepts not all things are in his/her control and walks at a much slower pace in no hurry to reach the end realising that the experience rather than the destination of Santiago has really been the true highlight of the Camino.

Well I am proving this theory is true – and much to my own disgust we have walked the first 4 days of the camino like young adolescents.

Less than 2kms into the morning walk we meet a young Swiss man sitting on the side of the road. He is walking the camino alone, and this is his first trip away from home. We watch as pilgrim after pilgrim walk past him without a second glance as they race to cover that days kilometres. This is not in the true spirit of being a pilgrim.

The young guy, almost in tears begs us for something to put on his blisters. Aah we think, we are not alone in our stupidity and he too had been caught out with the terrain yesterday. We had at least expected the blisters to come at some stage and so had a comprehensive first aid kit with all the supplies ready to go. However this young fellow had been walking with his “fingers crossed I wouldn't get blisters” and so had nothing. Oh dear,when the pharmacy doesn't open till 10am and the average pilgrim starts walking at 6am – that's 4 hours filled with a whole lot of pain!!

We share our supplies with him -making him promise that when he buys his own supplies he buys extra in case he passes anyone in the same situation he was in – and keep going.

Raya is sleeping in the carrier – such a great little traveller and I suspect she is being bored to sleep by the monotony of the landscape today. The scenery is very much like yesterday and I long for a change in the landscape just to provide a distraction from my toes.

A distraction! In a flash of brilliance I remember that Nick didn't but I DID pack my i-pod. Thank you Robbie Williams, Beyonce, Beastie Boys and Beck. The music allowed us to set a much faster pace and finally I had a smile on my dial. I don't think Nick has ever been so glad to see an i-pod otherwise it would have been a painful 18km for both of us.

After our routine strip off of our warmer layers, Raya is awake and smiling in the carrier – she seems to really love the walk and sings and babbles along on my shoulders. We meet the S trio – three people from Sweden, Switzerland and Slovakia. The girl from Sweden had the same little figurines Raya had, on her backpack, and they were full of questions about our little peregrino. They were being lovely and friendly but unfortunately I was in no mood for small talk – sorry guys. I was hoping they would be at the albergue at the end of the day to apologise for being so anti social. We have noticed that there are really two types of pilgrims -those who like to walk alone and ideally in silence and those social butterfly pilgrims who like to walk in company and make small talk the whole way.

Raya is becoming a bit of a celebrity which we didn't expect. Everyone who walks past us – and we mean EVERYONE, wants to take a photo and people joke with us that she must be the most photographed baby ever. We think we should be charging!!

Aurelia laps up all the attention and starts waving and smiling at anyone she sees walk past, pulling her biggest smiles as soon as she sees the camera – she must get that from her father!! A large percentage of people comment on how happy she is and we explain that if she was hating it we would leave the camino and come back again when she was older as this is a family experience where everyone has to be happy – but so far,so good.

We continued walking taking short breaks to rest our feet and allow Raya some play time. The path continues across rivers, through tunnels and through a long ravine today with a descent steepness of 10% - going downhill kills the blisters on my toes. We can just make out Viana and Logrono from the top of the ravine – taunting us it feels from a distance.

As we begin to head down the ravine we catch up with people who shared the albergue with us for the night in Pamplona. We spend time having a lovely conversation with a Danish women who is a social worker in Denmark but unfortunately do not get her name which is how it seems to commonly occur on the camino.

We also meet up again with the short and very cute canadian from Quebec who has 5 children and 8 grandchildren. He is wonderful with Aurelia and she adores him and he champions us on at every turn which is great when you are feeling low.

We also meet a wonderful loved-up older German couple who we shared a dorm room with in Lorca. They always seem so excited to see Aurelia when we cross paths on the walk throughout the day but they seem to have limited english so the conversations tend to be filled with smiles, gestures to the sky and then hand movements to indicate they are hot. We copy their fan gestures and nod smiling – yep we're hot too.

There are also a group of French tourists that we met after our first day of walking, at dinner. We couldn't work out how the women all looked so well groomed when they had such small packs until we saw them meet their support vehicle today and drive the next section. Mmm that would explain the blow dried hair and the pearls then. Of all the people we meet on the path Aurelia loves this group the most. They all sing the traditional french song to her while she blows kisses at them. Without fail she cries as they say good bye and walk off ahead of us.

As we walk through the ravine we notice that all the rivers we cross have signs saying 'aqua non portable' which means 'not fit for drinking'. We see some people who haven't carried enough water risk it but there I no way we are doing that and Nick is thankful for the extra litres of water that have been breaking his back all morning.

As the ravine continues to punish us we are struck with the thought of how equalizing the camino is. It doesn't matter what you earn and what socio economic class you are from. Everyone walks the same path. Everyone sees the same scenery and there are no shortcuts for the pilgrim. There are tourists who may walk short sections or do bus tours along the camino but for pilgrims the walking of the camino and staying in albergues is a humbling experience. If there is any status on the camino perhaps it is reserved for people who have walked the camino more than once or who began beyond the general starting point of St Jean Pied de Port.

The steep walk out of the ravine to follow the motorway into Viana is finally ahead of us and we pause to ready ourselves for the incline. Some people like to walk slowly and steadily, some people like to take breaks halfway up the incline but Nick and I are of the 'hell for leather” style where we put our heads down and give it everything not stopping until we get to the top. Nick smiles at me as I take a breath and pop the i-pod in. My feet may be killing me but we won't be beaten easily.

I had been paying attention earlier in the day to other pilgrims who had overtaken us – keen to pick up any tips which would make the walking easier. Generally most people were having an easier time because they had teeny tiny packs on but I did notice one trick the Danish woman had which was to walk up an incline in a zig zag pattern rather than straight up – which reduced the gradient of the climb. Why hadn't we thought of that before. We decided to give her strategy a try and well she was onto a winner!! Using this method we were up the incline without stopping and with less pain than the view from the bottom had led us to believe we would feel.

Sometimes the Camino made us cry but sometimes we felt like the camino was smiling down on us. As we reached the top of the incline we had such a moment. There in a tub of ice perched precariously on the side of the track were a collection of beers and soft drinks – all for 1 Euro.

Never have we felt such love for icy cold cans of Pepsi. Quickly grabbing two and leaving the right money we scampered the last few steps and sat under a tree to catch our breathe and savour our beverages. Bliss. How quickly we had become grateful for just small things that we would take for granted in daily life back at home – cool drinks or water, shade and a stream to soak our sore feet in while we walked.

Here we met a young german man. He too was carrying too much weight in his pack and so had injured his knee. I was not alone in my pain, there were a lot of people who were struggling each day on the camino.

At 3.30pm we arrived in Viana – our 18kms over – to smiles from now familiar faces and offers to share their table and have a beer. With a promise to “be right back' for that beer we searched out the alberque. From the crowds of people we had seen in the town streets it seems that the heat and ravine combo have caused many people to call it a day earlier than expected and it was no surprise to be told, once we reached the albergue, that they were “completo” – full. We turn around to the sound of frustrated sigh and watch the group of 6 pilgrims who were waiting behind us walk away muttering about having to catch the bus. Some people have only budgeted on staying in the cheap albergues and therefore when the albergues are full their only option is to continue on until they reach an albergue with a free bed. We have budgeted for rest days or for Aurelia not coping well with albergues and us having to make use of pensions – and therefore having to spend more for one night thankfully for us is not an issue.

We follow her instructions and arrive in front of a large wooden door with a huge brass knocker on the front. Nick uses the knocker and the noise startles Aurelia. After waiting Nick uses the knocker again. We hear what sounds like turning locks and then a buzzing noise and are grateful that someone is coming to let us in. The buzzing sound quitens and then – nothing. No door being opened, no smile or friendly greeting. We glance at each other, Nick raises his eyebrows and tentatively gives the door a push.

The large wooden door creaks open to reveal a dimly lit hallway full of religious icons with the hallway branching off into a rising staircase and an even narrower hallway on the right. Spying a large day bed style lounge I take a seat with Raya and send Nick to investigate. Popping out trekking poles in the corner Nick calls out “Hello, we are looking for somewhere to stay' in Spanish. Silence. Someone had just opened the door moments ago – we can't be alone here. We hear noises down the corridor to the right and I see a man walk across the corridor who appears to have just come out of the shower. He does not acknowledge we are there and by his 'one sided body tan' we take him to be a pilgrim and not the owner. The woman at the albergue had told us that we were after a tiny spanish woman who didn't speak English – so Nick continues searching. In looking for a reception area we stumble across a room no larger than a pantry, covered with a velvet curtain. When the curtain was pulled back the tiny space behind we could see had been converted into a religious altar or small chapel with religious icons and figurines not all belonging to the catholic church. This did nothing to alleviate the uneasy feeling we were developing for the place.

Trying the ancient looking staircase now Nick climbs the stairs calling out a greeting in Spanish so as to not startle some poor old Spanish woman in her own home. Upstairs indicated they had no idea where the owner was.

By now the eerie silence of the place combined with the low lighting and religious icon overkill was creeping us both out. I called for Nick to come back downstairs and we decide to make a hasty retreat from this strange pension back to the well lit, noisy, crowded alberque where we hoped Raya's charms could convince them to find some space for us.

Nick wandered into a 1920s upper class ornately decorated sitting room complete with study desk and stained glass windows which were clamped shut. Like below, the room was dimly lit and the dust floating in the air gave Nick the impression that the room had been closed up for a long long time. Around these pieces of ornately carved furniture pilgrims were silenty arranging their sleeping bags for the night.

By now Raya is keen to be out of the carrier and she is starting to squirm indicating to us that her patience is wearing thin. We walk back to the alberque – the only one in town, and explain to the lady that the pension is full (well it MAY have been if we had been able to find anyone to help us). Looking at Aurelia the lady then offers us a place on the large living room floor which we accept. Honestly we were happy to sleep anywhere and Raya had her Kinderkot so she was catered for. The lady brings us down mattresses and pillows and blankets and as everyone is exhausted from walking in the heat and pilgrims normally turn in by 8pm for the night – the quiet living room floor was a big step up from a noisy dorm room full of international snorers. Walking up the stairs to use the one ladies bathroom in the albergue which easily catered for over 100 pilgrims – I see the dorm beds – with bunk beds three beds high. There is NO way I would have been able to haul my aching body up onto the top bunk bed and am even more thankful for my makeshift bed in the common room.

Returning from the shower we go about setting up our sleeping space. I look at our gear sitting in the corner. Nick notices the puzzled look on my expression and asks me what I'm thinking. “I don't know why but I feel like we are missing something”. Simultaneously the penny drops for both of us. Crap – we had left our trekking poles back in that weird pension. Nick wants to draw straws to see who goes back for them – yeah right buddy – he is going back for them and he knows it – his Spanish is much better than mine.

After 15 minutes Nick is back chuckling to himself and describing the whole adventure as surreal. I'm curious as to what has taken him so long when the pension is only 2 minutes from the albergue. Nick had walked pack to the eerie pension arriving at the same time as two middle aged spanish ladies. Nick buzzed on the door while the spanish women waited silently beside him. This alone is unusual for any middle aged spanish women. This time the door is buzzed open only for Nick to be met by what he described as a 'wild eyed Spanish woman”. Immediately they all begin conversing in “rapid fire spanish” with no acknowledgement of Nicks' presence made at all. Spying our trekking poles in the corner, Nick waited momentarily to catch their attention but with no acknowledgement and concerns regarding his ability to explain how our trekking poles ended up in the corner of the hallway originally – Nick took one step around the ladies, grabbed the poles in one hand and beat his second hasty retreat for the day hoping he had just escaped without being subjected to some spanish mystical curse.

Still laughing to ourselves we head up to the main street feeling that a cold beer with pilgrim friend is even more well deserved now. Raya loves being carried high up on her daddy's shoulders and enjoys being passed between the smiling women pilgrims who all stroke her blonde hair and squeeze gently her chubby cheeks.

Back in the safety of the albergue Aurelia falls asleep for the night by 5.30pm so going out for a pilgrim meal is swapped for cooking our own meal. Nick is becoming quite proficient at cooking different meals with three or 4 basic ingredients. I get child supervision duty because I can barely stand on my feet. People who spy my feet have looks of horror on their faces. Yep they are groutequely impressive!!
When shopping for the ingredients Nick met a man from Melbourne who informs us that the story of us carrying Aurelia has chinese whispered into us being an Austrian couple with a 4-5 month old. We wish, she would be so much lighter to carry! Nick wishes him “Buen Camino” and the melbourne man jokingly heads off to set the record straight.

As we settle down for sleep we discuss just walking 10kms tomorrow and as my eyes shut I think to myself 'I hope that isn't rain I can hear outside'.