Granon to Villafranca

This morning Jenni and I awoke with a refreshed zest. It was cloudy outside and the temperature was perfect.

We had spent the night at an old church albergue that was built by a pilgrim hundreds of years earlier. There were no cots so 16 people slept on mats on the floor in each of three rooms. The mats were side by side so it was very cozy.

After 9 nights on the Camino this closeness no longer mattered and we had one of the best nights sleep yet. Not only did we sleep well our feet felt amazing. Jenni's blister was healed leaving only a hard piece of skin where the blister had been. My metatarsals and blisters also seemed to be a 100% better. We attributed the healing to the pilgrim's prayer we recieved the night before in the ancient church attached to the Albergue.

We ate a traditional pilgrim breakfast of bread and coffee with the other pilgrims. While eating breakfast we went over our plans with our traveling companions. It was here that we met Chris. Chris studied in New Elm MN and now travels the world teaching English online. He spent a year in Costa Rica and was full of traveling tips for Jenni and I.

We hit the trails a bit late, around 7:15ish, and started walking. It didn't take long before we came across James. We seem to see him every morning while walking and chat a bit about our experiences the day before.

It is interesting the people you see along the trail. Almost every country is represented and every mode of travel present. Today we came across a runner that started in St Jean 5 days after us and even after having a day off caught up to us. We had the benefit of walking with him while he was taking a break and learned he was from Scotland and was running the Camino to get in shape before starting a desk job.

During today's walk we were amazed at the lack of houses outside of town. This was the same throughout Spain but it finally struck us as significant. In the US it would have been impossible to walk between towns and only see fields. The absence of condos, fences, houses, even barns was absolutely stunning and made the entire walk visually stimulating.

We walked long in the cool overcast day. When we made it to our destination we chose an albergue that was owned by a prior pilgrim that wanted to give back. The place was attached to a hotel and was very clean and spacious. It was a welcome place to rest.

When we arrived to the albergue we ran into Bryan. We first saw him in Pamplona and he caught the bus with us to St Jean to start the Camino. Since then we been seeming him almost everyday. One of the great things about the Camino is we see a lot of our friends throughout the journey. We don't generally make plans and it is always a celebration we see each other.

Jenni and I made our own dinner of lettuce, olives, tomatoes, white asparagus, and corn. With a bottle of wine it was amazing to spend some alone time with each other.

During our dinner we met some new friends from Sweden and Norway that were walking back to Scandinavia. They just flew over from India where they met and their new love for each other seemed to be carrying them through.