St Juan de Ortega

Today was a couples day, Hilda and Vernon, Isabella and Reiner, Monika
and Wolfgang.

The day started with desayuno (breakfast), in a crowded bar I shared a
table with Hilda and Vernon. I had met them at dinner the previous
night.

H & V are doing the Camino supported by a company that books their
accommodation and transports their luggage. But this has some
pitfalls, today they walked to San Juan and then had to taxi back to
where we all started this morning as their are no hotels in San Juan.
They will taxi back to San Juan in the morning to start walking again.

H & V and I walked together most of the morning and had lovelly wide-
ranging discussions. We separated on this afternoons steeper hills.

I & R and I met as we were trying to find our way out of town this
morning. They are from Germany but now live in South Africa. I kept
meeting them during the day and shared a bottle of wine with them
after dinner.

Also sharing the wine were M & W, who are German but speak as much
English as I do German. Reiner was the glue - translating funny
stories into each language.

The first 12km today were cool and easy, the second 12 were over the
Montes de Oca. Hard work over a series of hills - with no towns or
respite in that second half.

Except, the Italians from Bologna have a support car. So their
support car went to the middle of the hills and offered every
peregrino cold water, wine, salami sandwiches and chocolate. It was
great fun.

There was much concern that there wouldn't be enough beds in St Juan
but all is OK, a new Hostal has eased the pressure.

I am staying in the albergue but had dinner in the comedor as it's the
only option in town. Shared the table with bloke from Poland, didn't
catch his name but he was notable as both an interesting person and
one of the very few whose Spanish is worse than mine .

San Juan is tiny but famous for it's pilgrim mass and blessing. A few
of us went but the service was most notable for how it ended. A group
we had seen during the day had continued on to Atapuerca but chose to
come back for the blessing. After the service had ended they treated
eveyone to a choral recital which was spectular given the superb
acoustics of the old church.

On a side note, the South Africans are friends with a group of ladies
from that country who walked the Camino in April/May 2007. From their
descipyion this is the same group Gen and I met on our first day out
of Roncesvalles in 2007.

Cheers
John