Saturday, January 01, 2011

Day 6 on the Camino – Drunken Pilgrims, Vineyards as Far as the Eye Can See, and Shepherds on Cell Phones

Monday, September 27th – 13.1 miles to Los Arcos. Ya just gotta love a 13 mile day. After all, tomorrow’s going to be a 17-miler.

Several places, we saw ropes of these peppers hanging. Suppose they’re spicy?


Uphill through woods to the outdoor Irache wine fountain – no kidding! The Irache monastery of Benedictine monks was established in the 10th century to take care of the Camino’s pilgrims. Due to a lack of novitiates, the monastery closed in 1985 and is now a museum.


Huh. Not only were there no monks when we got there, there was also no wine left in the fountain. The pilgrims before us had drunk it all up – and we got there by 9:30 a.m. The sots!


Kathie’s not the only one in the group who’s skilled at getting photos of people’s backs.


After climbing 300 vertical feet over 3 kilometers, we were ready for lunch! This is where we stopped to eat in Villamayor de Monjardin.




In some places along the first 100 miles, there were vineyards as far as the eye could see…


…and grapes just asking to be picked and eaten.


Somewhere in this pic are a sheepherding dog sitting next to his shepherd, who was too busy talking on his cell phone to watch his flock. Honest – I saw the malingerers.


I got his herd back up out of the road for him…and now I believe the stories about sheep following each other over cliffs.


Before we reached Los Arcos, we took a break to rest our moleskin-clad tootsies…


…and stretch our backs.


Los Arcos is a relatively small place but it sure was hard to find the Hotel Monaco from the directions we had. When we did get there, we had dinner then went out, as usual, to pick up some grub for the next day’s lunch; Kathie snapped this shot of the fuente in the plaza.


Tomorrow, on to Logrono.

2 comments:

Katharine said...

It was a luscious day, and by the way those are my footsies. I'll back you up. Those guys were on their cellphones while the sheeps were beating it out the back door and across the road!

Pat said...

Yes, those are definitely your tootsies! Photo of my pitiful piggies is yet to come. Doncha just love that shot of Kathleen? It's one of my favorites of the whole trip.