April 27, 2023

I thought I was up early, but by the time I got all packed and came downstairs most people were gone.  My goal for today is to walk to Lorca which is 12 miles.  Uterga is very quiet in the morning.

I walked for a long time by myself, only seeing the occasional person, pilgrim or not.   I made my way to Puente de Reina.  Since no one was around at the albergue when I left, I only bought a power aid from a vending machine.  My mistake was to get something at the first cafe I came to. I didn’t want an Iberian pork sandwich, so I asked if the next sandwich over in the case was chicken.  The woman just grabbed it and put it on the plate with a chocolate croissant.  Well it wasn’t chicken, and in all honesty, I have no idea what lay between the sliced baguette, it was at least eatable.  As I walked deeper into town I saw the first church. Notice the stories in the tower.

The second church wasn’t far but is was open.  It has a similar, but much larger, alter as the church yesterday.

Not long after I ran into Kevin from the night before, he was having second breakfast. As you leave town you cross the puente the town is named for.

Kevin planned to stop in Cirauqui for the day. I should have, but I didn’t because the description of the town was that everything was uphill. It is a very interesting looking place perched on top of a hill. The day was spent walking through agricultural land, mostly wheat and it is in its early stages. The area is probably similar to rolling Tuscan hills.

It would have been my 10 mile mark for the day. A distance that I know works good for me. As I walked down out of town I realized I was on something that I wanted to find, a Roman road. There are lots of them, but many have modern roads laid over the top of them.

The Roman road turned out to be difficult to walk on as the cobblestones were very uneven and the slope downhill was steep. At the bottom was the remains of a bridge, attempting to cross the bridge was another pilgrim named Janet, she was having difficulty. We both made it over and walked together. I had a reservation for the night, but Janet preferred to wing it and see what was available, she preferred the smaller albergues.

We encountered a lot of ups and downs in the Camino.  After much sweat we made it to Lorca.  We split our ways in town and I walked a little further to my lodging for the night.  It is a newer hotel ran by a husband and wife.  I got to my daily chore of hand washing my clothes and then took a shower for myself. This was probably the nicest clothes washing setups that I encountered. They did have a washer/dryer available, but it was 14 euros.

Raul showed me the facility and Anabell cooked a pilgrim dinner of bean soup, bread, slow roasted pork, stewed peppers and potatoes; strawberry yogurt for desert.  I felt a little bad as I was the only guest having the dinner.

Tomorrow I do not want to walk past 10 miles, my goal will be Azqueta.