Day 7–Wednesday, May 17. Estella to Villamayor de Monjardin (6 miles)

Today is a special day in many ways, but foremost is my parents 65th wedding anniversary. What an amazing fete in days where the majority of marriages end in divorce. German stubbornness genes run strong in my family.

Today is also our 4 month wedding anniversary which means that the number one priority for the day was money (that is the reason Pam married me–for my lack of money). We met George out front of our hostel at 7:30. He had a crappy night’s sleep and was in a bad mood which made our private room and bath all the sweeter. We felt obliged to point out how pleasant our night was.

Rob and Michelle had passed George around 7. They had decided to spend last night in Villatuerta as well as Shaun. That explains why we didn’t see them last night in town. Shaun is going to take today off and spend it with Alena who is still having for problems.

After a leisurely breakfast, we started our search for a bank to exchange our worthless American dollars. After 3 banks, we finally got a nibble. Caixa Banco said they exchange money, but not at the branch we were at. We made our way through town to the main branch and were able to convey our wish to pay a high exchange rate to take our money. Actually, they were very friendly and helpful. In my opinion, they saved our life. Lesson learned, exchange money before traveling overseas. We got 10% less than the actual exchange rate.

The loss of the money was quickly forgotten just a few miles up the trail. We stopped for a quick look at a true craftsman’s shop–a blacksmith’s shop was on the side of the trail. They did amazing work! The were even making old fashioned locks that worked.

We looked up the trail to see that George had already found the wine fountain. The Bodegas Irache wine fountain has only been around since 1891 serving to pilgrims. They give away 100 liters a day to pilgrims (which equals approximately 12 ounces per pilgrim). By the time we arrived, George had already had his 12-32 ounces and was very happy. It wasn’t until after Pam and I got our 12 ounces that we saw the closed circuit camera–we are afraid the monks might be coming after George.

With the late start due to the money swap added to the wine expedition, we agreed to George’s request to stop after just 6 miles. It was only another 4 miles to Monjardin. We were forced to stop after just another mile after the fountain to have a coffee. Now we were 3 wide awake drunks hobbling down the trail.

We made it to the Alburgue we wanted to stay at (the one George picked–never argue with a wine soaked pilgrim) by 12:30. We ate the lunch we had carried with us until we could get into the alburge. There were already people waiting when we got there, but I was confident we would get in. At 1, they opened the doors and we were the second ones in.

We got all settled in to our beds on the second floor. While we were getting all set up, a couple of Canadians came in. Alex and Nathan were going at a much faster pace than we are. Alex is going to cover the distance in one day that we plan on covering in the next 2 days.

After I uploaded a few pictures for the blog and made another post for the Pembrokeshire trail (I’ve still got 5 more days to write as of this writing, so I will hold off posting anything on the Camino until I finish that trail). We went to the local bar for a little foot therapy–i.e. beer ingestion until the feet stop hurting. We made the mistake of trying to explain to Pam how a sundial works–it was all downhill from there.