El Camino, Part 4: Buen Camino!

In an attempt to catch up with last year's trip and actually be able to focus on current plans, this is a bit of a long one.  So grab a nice cup of tea, you may be here for some time...Over the next few days the trail becomes much busier as I join the more popular pilgrim route route at Puente la Reina.  I pass through Villatuerta, Estella (home to the Bodegas winery which offers fountains of free water and wine for passing travellers), and the hillside village of Villamajor de Montjardin, heading for Los Arcos.  Late in the day I pass a couple wild camping on the edge of some fields.  It is a glorious afternoon and they have the perfect spot.  Despite having lightweight camping gear with me, I realise that I'm basing each day around reaching an Albergue.  Am I still a little nervous about wild camping?  I decide that because I'm riding on my own I'm enjoying being in a place each night where there are people to meet.  I'm sure that it's nothing to do with the need for a hot shower after a long sticky ride.I notice that along this busier Camino, it's customary to wish travellers Buen Camino! as they pass by.  Locals call out to me as they point me in the right direction; I call out to walkers as I roll past.  And written messages are common...In Los Arcos I stay in a cute little hostel, in a dorm room with an Irish guy walking a section of the Camino for a week, an American suffering an ankle injury and two hilarious old Spanish guys.  Funny as they were, one had walked all the way from Puente La Reina that day - nearly as far as I had cycled.  I really must try harder!  The Irish guy and I go out for a simple dinner in town.  That night I bump into two Hungarian girls in the hostel's communal bathroom and laundry at least three times but a little shyness with new people means I say nothing more than a quiet "hi".  Its only the next morning, as I'm packing up the bike outside, that we chat a little.  They're so friendly and as they head off I rue the missed opportunity to talk to them the night before.  I guess you can't get to know everyone you meet, but somehow there is an openness and camaraderie of shared purpose along this route that kind of makes you want to.In the morning, as usual I am one of the last to leave, and gradually pass all the walkers I met last night. It feels wonderful to be able to make such relatively rapid progress by bike.  I'm feeling pretty bike fit now, and enjoy cranking out some miles. Progress feels much easier than those first first days.  There are other cyclists on the trail, and we take turns to pass each other at various times throughout the day.  These include a 68 year old who plugs away all day and eventually turns up at my hostel that evening, as well as two overweight guys in very tight lycra riding bikes on which they look really uncomfortable. They keep plugging away though.  As I pass through the city of Logrono I randomly meet the American from our hostel room, who has caught the bus today to rest his ankle.  Small world.  Leaving Logrono, I overtake a group of mountain bikers on a steep uphill trail.  It feels so satisfying - on my loaded bike, with them in their professional looking lycra gear.  I meet them again later on and it turns out that they have ridden all the way from Estella that morning - much further than I - but even so...  I remember a distinct point in Germany where I suddenly found myself relishing grinding my overweight bike up a steep hill.  It comes as something of a surprise, as if your body has caught up with its fitness but your brain hasn't yet realised.Heading up out of Navarette on a dusty track I catch and pass two girls with panniers on mountain bikes who don't look like they're enjoying the hill, and give a muted response to my "hola!". Waiting at the top of the hill is their friend Wolfgang. They all work for the same company in Austria and decided to take a week off and cycle across Spain to a work conference in Santiago, rather than fly straight there and back. What an awesome plan.  We chat for a little while and then I head off.Despite feeling pretty good on the bike, I've noticed  a growing tightness behind my left knee over the last few days and at the back of my mind I've been wondering whether I'll need a rest day.  I've also been a little worried that I didn't really think through the extra mileage of my quickly chosen route over the Pyrenees very carefully.  As I email a bike shop in Santiago to arrange to get my bike boxed up before the flight home I realise that I need to arrive in Santiago a day earlier than I'd expected because of their short opening hours at the weekend.  Making it to Santiago in time is looking pretty tight already, and if I take a rest day, probably not possible at all.I arrive into the Albergue in Santa Domingo to find that they have an in house masseuse / physiotherapist, which seems abnormally modern in such an ancient place.  He is a very popular guy, with a queue of people in the foyer waiting to have their blisters tended to and their aching feet strapped up. He puts some tape around my knee and that evening I eventually decide to take the next day to rest here.  I know that this means I won't make it to Santiago.  But, this was never meant to be a race, and I don't regret taking the route that I did in the first week.  The Camino Aragones was beautiful - my favourite part of the route so far.  I convince the receptionist to let me stay for two nights (which is technically not allowed as the Albergues are for pilgrims travelling through, not for extended stays) and start to take a look at options for hopping on the train to Santiago at some point in the next week...It's a little late in the afternoon and the main Albergues are all full. The city seems packed. I wonder if I'm going to have the same problem for the rest of the journey.  Wandering the streets trying to find a hotel I've been directed to, I suddenly hear a "Hello!" right next to me.  It's Wolfgang and his friends, Verena and Silvia.  I'm amazed at how I seem to be able to bump into people, who I've met just once before, on street corners in large cities. They are heading to find some food but I need to find a bed before everywhere else becomes full.   We don't work out a way to meet later to eat or drink  as their phones are charging back at their hostel and Burgos is a big place, so we go our separate ways, saying that hopefully we'll meet on the trail the next day.  Eventually I find a hotel that has a spare room and will store my muddy bike for the night, and head out for an over priced meal.  Despite the comfortable bed and room to myself, I find myself yearning for a sociable Albergue full of interesting people rather than a lonely hotel...Its a passing feeling though - on the trail out of Burgos the next day, I catch up with Wolfgang, Verena and Silvia, and we spend the next few days riding together.Ridiculously, the descent has bottomed out but I drift too close to the right hand side of the trail and catch a branch. As I feel myself losing control and sliding down onto my left hand side, my brother's crash on an innocuous piece of landrover track in Wales a few years ago, which was caused just by a little bit of excess speed and which destroyed his elbow, flashes through my mind.  I'm kicking myself before I hit the ground - my brother's accident often crosses my mind on descents and causes me to back off the speed a little, but perhaps here I haven't been careful enough.  I try to tuck everything in and slide down the gravel on one side as smoothly as I can...  When I come to a stop I  spend a few seconds checking that I'm in all in one piece and then limp down to a small church.  The elbow is in quite a mess, with a couple of really deep lacerations.  I clean it up in a bathroom at the back of the church, try unsuccessfully to apply a steristrip or two, and in the end just bandage it up.