Day 3 Roncesvalles to Viskarret

We were all up to an early start as some crazy people in the hostel felt the need to leave at 6am. The last time I checked this was not a race but I guess some people wanted to get to Zubiri early enough to have an afternoon free to do things. It's an industrial town, so who knows what.

As I was up early it was shower time for me, nobody else does as they all believe it softens the feet and causes blisters. Utter bliss, all the showers available and as much time as I need.

Got back to my bunk bed, checked in on Linda and we decided we were not rushing at all. Yet again I am one of the last pilgrims to leave the Albergue.
I looked out the window and all I saw was fog, fog and more fog. I just thought hell no, not another day of crap weather, I need some sun and quick. People, this is not England, it's Spain for goodness sake. I could see my friend Fahiema Enous hosing herself right now as she knows just cold I got training in Cape Town at about 10 degrees higher.

We set out from Roncesvalles at about 8am, after munching two little muesli bars, meaning I would last about 2km's and starve to death....
Linda checked our guide book and the town of Burguete was only 3km's away. The minute I saw the first supermarket I flew in and bought ham and cheese. After a good munchie, I felt I could continue for a few more km's.
We wondered through the town of Burguete, see pics, they run in order as write this from town to town. On the mobile blog app it is difficult to load captions if you load a lot of pictures.
Burguete is a traditional Navarese village where Ernest Hemingway used to stay.
The Camino then takes you down wide farm tracks and all you smell is dung and wade through mud, well a combo of mud and dung. The sun came out ...... Woohoo!!!!!
After that we headed down a beautiful woodland path until we landed up on the small tar road.

We then came across the beautiful town of Espinal Aurizberri another traditional village. I really loved this town, we decided to stop for coffee as I was feeling very tired, the last two days were taking there toll.

At this point Linda and I decided that we were not going to push onto Zubiri. It was time to find a little traditional village to spend the night.

We took a left turn in the middle of Espinal and hit farm tracks going up yet again, my body was no longer keen on that at all.
I cannot describe the beautiful countryside, the pics show it all.
We were then at a high point of 955m.
Then came the trek down more woodlands and then up to Gerendiain Viskarret/Biskarreta.
This is where we decided to call it a day after 12km's.
Viskarret is a small ancient hamlet with the 13th century Church of St. Peter.
We checked into Pensión Corazón Puro meaning "Pure Heart" run by an awesome Hungarian couple. Turns out they owned a restaurant in mossel bay (South Africa) for a year.

We really enjoyed our evening meal with a few other pilgrims at the Pensiòn.

That's my little story for today.