A wonderful peaceful night: after the day's excesses we had salad for supper, went to mass, and the whole population of the alburgue (hostel) was in bed solidly from 9.30 to 7.
As a result we felt moderately able to tackle a moderately epic day. The scheduled part was up to the Alta de Perdon - the one you see pictures of covered in windmills and with iron cutouts of pilgrims heading into the wind.
The way down was harder but slowly and surely has been the way to go today.
At Punta la Reina, a lovely old stone town of narrow streets and monasteries, we voted to continue on for the sake of another peaceful night. The extra few K were hard but worth it for a lovely hostel in this beautiful hilltop town.
With the Other People issue largely avoided by the current walk-further strategy, my biggest problem is disintegrating toes. I think there will be fewer nails before much longer. Am trying the salt soak again as (toes aside) I think that did help a bit yesterday. Update: I've just been given a stern talking to by the landlady about the need to drain the behind-toenail blisters. Nice.
I should point out I'm not avoiding all other people, and there's a core of relatively peaceful ones I am now in synch with. Apart from the Irish guys my current pack include Australian Peter, northern Irish Joe, Australian Rob and a German chap I think is called Juergen. There was a german girl too but she sped on even further today. I think that means she has to do at least 10k more, impressive but she is super lightweight - her sleeping bag weighs almost nothing but cost more than 300 euros. Wow. I bought mine in 1998, I can't imagine it cost more than 30 quid.
The walking was really fantastic today, almost all on white farm tracks between green green fields, and with occasional flowering orchards, olives and vineyards to break it up. The landscape this side of the windy ridge looks roman with tiled hilltop towns and lots and lots of very old churches. The grand weather continues as well, a little cooler today but plenty hot enough in the frying late afternoon.
Must just say: thanks for all the lovely messages - I didn't know it would be this connected but it's lovely to hear from y'all.
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