Todays distinctive feature was the weather in the morning. We knew it was coming, practically to the minute. Last night at dinner one of the guys who spoke English said that nobody would sleep past 8 today because of a massive thunderstorm that would exactly then. I checked my phone for the time when the first flash and crash hit. It was 7:56.
The lighting ended by about 9 and everyone set off for where I am now, the first town in Navarra after leaving Aragonnes. It's called Sanguesa.
Gronze.com says that there is a 350 meter climb over the first 6.5 km. If that's true I'm pretty pleased with how I'm doing so far. It defininately was a relentless uphill, but I think I only stopped once on that stretch.
The fact that it was raining steadily for the first hour, raining hard for the second and absolutely pouring for the third probably took my mind off the hill. After the climb it was another 3.5 - 4 km of flat terrain. That's where you get mud. It was as slippery as any mud I've walked on. I got to the bar at some village a little after noon and I had reached terminal wetness. As wet as I could get.
The people who wore ponchos looked dry as a bone. Not only was I soaked but had slipped on the mud and fallen so my whole left side was mud. Fall might not be the right word because it was so slow motion but the result was the same, dirt wise. I changed all of my clothes at the bar, had some patatas bravas and left at noon. It never did rain again.
The best prepared person was a Belgian girl who is now my rain-dressing role model. She has a very cool black poncho with a white reflective vertical strip down the back, that folds itself into a fanny pack like Jill's Asturian jacket. She also was the only one with rain pants (that go over regular hiking pants). I passed her after the top of the hill when it was really pouring. She was sitting on a rock eating a cookie. She got to the bar, yanked off her poncho and rain pants and she - and her pack were dry as a bone.
Tonight I'm staying at an overpriced hostel. It's okay though because I have room to hang everything out to dry. Hand washed pretty much all of my clothes so I expect to be pretty comfortable tomorrow.
It looks like one albergue is the only show in town tomorrow. This one doesn't have any private rooms, just one big room with 10 bunk beds (20 total). I like that better than sharing a room with one or two strangers for some reason. Anyway it's supposed to be nice tomorrow, but another one of those stages where there's no place to stop for the first 18km so I'll do a little food shopping in a bit.
No comments:
Post a Comment