Day 8: Rest Day in Estella

Miles: 7.21/Steps: 15,792

I decided it made sense to have a rest day today to give my feet a chance to heal. Everyone had left the hostel by 7am and checkout wasn’t until 8:30am so it was really nice to have the place to myself for a bit. I had a lovely shower, organized my things and left at 8:30am on the dot. I went straight to the doctors office which opened at 9:00am. I hoped I could get an appointment and wanted to be there when they arrived. Estella was deserted that early in the morning. It was so peaceful and quiet. It was nice to take my time to stroll down the streets and enjoy the architecture. God knows we don’t have anything like this in Arizona!

The doctors office was Clínica Podológica Cristina Sáenz and Cristina was awesome. I had a bit of a breakdown while I was there. I just got a bit overwhelmed by the severity of the blisters and I think the tired was catching up to me. She calmed me down, sat me down and got to work. She cut off spare skin on 2 of the blisters. She made the puncture wounds bigger on 2 others and gave me some great tips on what to do. Apparently, I have bad shaped toes and different shaped shoes and moleskin wouldn’t have made a difference. (Great genes!? Thanks Mom and Dad!) I’m just going to have to work thru it. Her number 1 recommendation was to use a needle and thread the blisters and leave the thread in. I went to the pharmacy and it really is a thing.

I had to kill 4 hours before I could check into my hostel so I walked back to the old part of town to find a grocery store and a coffee shop.

I haven’t really spoken much about the high number of people that are doing the Camino right now. In years past, April and May were much slower than the rest of the year because the weather is unpredictable. I thought it would be a great time to come but a lot of other people had the same idea. That combined with the fact that Korea TV did a reality series about the Camino has drastically increased the number of Koreans on the trail. Historically a person could arrive to any town and find a bed somewhere but unfortunately that isn’t the case now. For example, most people walk from Estella to Los Arcos which is 13.5 miles. Los Arcos is completely sold out tomorrow so I have to walk 17 miles to get to Torres del Rio. It all works out in the end but it does take some of the spontaneity out of things. I spent 2 hours figuring out distances and booking rooms at the coffee shop today. I’m about halfway booked for the trip which is a good start.

I arrived back at the hostel at 1:30 pm and waited for the courier to bring my Compostela. I was so happy that it arrived! I knew in my heart it was going to work out but it was a relief to actually have it in hand.

I decided to treat myself to a single room tonight with a private bath. It’s been a long week and I needed a good nights sleep. On my walk there I came across this sign

The property manager Pablo was great and gave a great tour of the building. He taught me some Spanish along the way. He was fun to be around and the accommodation was great. It’s actually a three bedroom apartment. He rents out the rooms individually. I got the master bedroom and it was the best accommodation I’ve had since I started walking. My housemates were Alice (retired 46 year old from Taiwan who speaks a small amount of English and no Spanish) and Jackie (who is the funniest French Chef I have ever met. He reminds me of a combination of the Swedish Chef on Sesame Street and my brother in law Mike). He barely speaks any English but was so animated with his stories that I totally understood what he was saying most of the time! We used Google Translate a lot at dinner but I was thoroughly entertained.
I have a big day tomorrow so am ending here! Everyone please send positive to my toes tomorrow!