Day 4 started out a lot better than I expected. I seem to wake up twice in the night to go pee, once around 2am, and again around 4am. The first time I get up my muscles are super stiff, the second time less so. By the time I get up in the morning, I can tell my legs are tired, but it doesn't feel as doom and gloom as it did the first time I got out of bed.
We were taking our time getting ready, letting all the people who were in a rush head out for the day. We were packing up our stuff when the host came and told us (in Spanish) that we needed to leave because we were "very, very late". This was at 7:30am, and breakfast had only been served at 6:30. My theory is that he just wanted us to leave so he could clean, since everyone else had gone already ... But it's nice to have a story about being kicked out of a hostel!
We got to see the sunrise today, which is something Trine had mentioned wanting to see yesterday.
I tried out Annalea's new hiking poles in the parking lot and could definitely see how they could help especially when your knee was hurting. I picked up a stick after Roncevalles that I've been using, but I could get into the cadence of using it on my left side (which is actually the knee that hurts), when you have two poles, you can get into a rhythm which makes it easy to support either side.
We started out with a nice long stop for breakfast on our way out of town, we need to learn not to stop so close to the Camino... wishing everyone who walks by a "Buen Camino" makes it hard to eat!
On our way through fields and fields of dead sunflowers, we met a group of people who offered Trine and I sets of hiking poles. It seems the airline had lost all their hiking poles, so they bought replacements, and then the airline found their poles, so they had been carrying get the extra set to give away ever since!
They say the Camino provides, but his was an amazing case of deciding that I probably wanted a set of poles and then hours later getting some for free. Goodbye noble staff, you served me well!
We made it to the first town much quicker than expected and we're confident we could make it to the next, even though it was up and over a peak, and there was a warning on the map about the descent being difficult.
We ran into a German woman, Vanessa, who we had seen a few times. She's a larger woman carrying a huge pack, and we had wondered how she was doing so well so far. Well today we found out that she was not actually doing so well, she had been pushing herself pretty hard (and apparently didn't know how to properly adjust her pack, according to some others who had helper her), when we found her she was frustrated on the sidewalk waiting for a cab to arrive to take her to the next "stopping point" town, essentially she was taking a rest day, but still keeping to her itinerary. It sounds like she over worked herself and her hips started hurting too much to continue for the day. Hopefully she recovers and we see her on the trail.
As we made it to the peak we came upon a famous landmark of the Camino, the iron pilgrim sculpture.
We also came across a couple (Ryan and Kitty) from Virginia who had just started their Camino this morning in Pamplona. They walked with us the rest of the day, and it was nice to have new company. They too seem to like frequent breaks and a slower pace, so they're a welcome addition to the group. (Also, Ryan proposed to Kitty at the albergue! Yay Camino stories!)
We actually managed to make it all the way to our "daily destination" city which was 20km from our last stop. We were very seriously considering that we wouldn't make it this far today, the hike was definitely a bit easier today, probably a combination of our new poles, our bodies adapting, and an easier itinerary today.
When we made it to town, the main hostel was already full (completo) so we had to walk all the way through town, and then up some ridiculously long rocky hill to get to the next albergue, but this one had a pool! It feels a lot like a combination between a resort and an internment camp.
