Day: August 27, 2022

Walked- Today: 5.4mi/Camino 2022: 79 mi

We began again at daybreak, and walked in a straight line with only slight variations in elevation. The scenery also did not vary. The dirt path finally made a few curves before merging with the pavement as we walked into Sansol, pop. 100.

On the outskirts of Sansol, we were saddened to see a favorite stopping place had become one of the many casualties of the pandemic too frequently observed thus far for Camino 2022.

We continued on to the next small village of Torres del Rio, pop. 122, where we got breakfast and concluded our walk for the day.

The 6 mile stretch from Torres del Rio is know as the “ knee wrecker”. It is aptly named, based on our personal experience walking it in 2014 and 2017. We used a taxi to bypass it in 2019 and we plan to use a bus to skip it today. We used La Pata de Oca albergue as our base, while waiting for the 11:35 bus to transport us into Viana, where we will spend the night.

At the bus stop, we met two other pilgrims (Phillip, from Texas and Lora, from Germany) who had similar ideas about the “knee wrecker”. They both had previous experiences walking the Camino. Phillip was nursing some blisters and Lora was recovering from heat stroke, suffered a few days earlier. We rode the bus to Viana together, then parted with Phillip going on to Logroño and Lora meeting some other German friends in Viana or Logtoño.

We walked a short distance from the Viana bus stop to our guesthouse, San Pedro, checked in and return to the Viana Calle Mayor (main street) to have a pilgrim menu for lunch before beginning our routine afternoon chores. We were entertained by hundreds of Viana locals enjoying Sunday afternoon socializing, spontaneous outbursts of music and song, plus the constant flow of pilgrims either joining in or moving on to Logroño

We returned to our room, doing our usual, then returned at 6:00 to the now, abandoned streets to grab a couple of pintxos and wine for a snack meal, then calling it another day on the Camino 2022.

Walked- Today: 7.8mi/Camino 2022: 74mi

We left Villamayor de Monjardin at 6:45 with the stars still out and the temperature, a delightfully refreshing 52F. The nearly 8 miles walk to Los Arcos is without any services, ie., no water, no food and no rest areas.

There were a few hills that broke the monotony of the mostly flat, dirt road that carved its way among an occasional green patch of grapevines, olive trees or asparagus plants.

At one point, about 5 miles into the walk, as we were dragging up one of the steeper hills we observed a small rock in the middle of the path … which urged us onward.

We walked past a “hay stack“, which is typical of the area, but still awesome, every time we see one.

The challenge of today’s walk was to not get discouraged by the seemingly endless distances ahead of us most of the way.

We got to Los Arcos about 10:30 and found an empty table in the village square and rested our bodies a few minutes, before having some breakfast. Check-in time for our room was noon, so we hung out in the square until then,

To occupy some of the “ wait” time, we visited the church on the square, the Iglesia de Santa Maria de la Asunción. It’s one of our favorite churches on the Camino.

We checked-in to our room at 12:30 , then shortly after returned to the plaza for lunch… since all other restaurants won’t be serving meals until 7:30. We returned to our room, did our chores, blogged, read and had our “ backup” sandwiches ( prepared last night in our kitchen) for a light supper before retiring for the evening.