day 31
– draft
Friday,
6 May 2016
Uterga
to Estella / Lizarra
30 km
today - 115 km on Camino Frances - 848
km to date
Up
with the early mob, breakfast and get going.
Today I have a small 5 km diversion to a unique octagonal chapel at the
locality of Eunate dedicated to Santa Maria.
As I approach the chapel a worrying pain develops at the top of my right
leg. I immediately blame the huge
strides I was taking yesterday coming down the Sierra del Perdon. The chapel looks just like the online photos
and is open at the weekend. I decide not
to wait.
Obanos
is about 5 km away and I do the best I can to get there. At the approach I am struck by the design of
the church tower: it looks decidedly English in style, upright, square and with
higher stone work (pinnacles) in each corner.
Another town with nothing apparently open and I move quickly towards
Puente la Reina. A nice busy town and I
stop to say the morning office in an open church. There is a grand bridge on the way out of
town.
I stay
on the way until Maneru where I take morning tea then take the road to
Cirauqui. Back to the way for the Roman
bridge but soon wish I hadn't. The
descent through the ruins is extremely challenging (because of the pain in my
right hip) as is the climb back up to the way.
Fortunately, the road adjoins the way at this point and I move on to
it. This relatively major road is wide,
flat across its width with good wide shoulders and nice gradients, and little
used. It is grand to walk along.
A few
km before Lizarra the discomfort level is too high and I hitch. My driver knows exactly where the parish albergue
is and takes me directly there. Here I
meet Juan Carlos, a volunteer hospitalero
from Brazil. He takes an interest in my
condition and quickly commends me to bus forward to Logrono and from there go
to my intended break at Barcelona.
I go
and get some food to cook for dinner.
And so
to bed.
No comments:
Post a Comment