Today was a gorgeous day. The sun was out and we walked through some amazing scenery.

But the heat was punishing and the weight of the backpack was killing me.

Every step became excruciating. I could feel every pebble and rock underneath my shoe. My whole back was groaning in pain.

While I was snacking on the road, I probably didn’t eat or drink enough. I felt faint and wanted to throw up from sheer exhaustion.

When we got to the outskirts of Estella, Raffy caught me trying to hitchhike. He took my backpack from me and carried it to the hostel, which was only up a hill all the way at the end of the town. I shuffled along lamely behind him. (THANK YOU, RAFFY!)

I begged the other pilgrims we encountered along the road to assure me that it would get easier. They just shook their heads and laughed.

I’m so tired and in so much pain that’s something’s got to give. It’s either me or the backpack.

I’ve come up with a compromise. Will unload things like chargers and other useless electronics and send those things via the transport service (it costs only five euros) and will carry my backpack with much less weight.

Hopefully, I won’t feel like cutting off my limbs tomorrow and will stop wanting to die.

Maybe then I will finally hit my stride.

Accommodations:

Albergue Juvenil Oncenida

We loved this hostel because its staff were wonderful. They were very helpful and kind and I would totally recommend the albergue if it weren’t atop a hill 800 km. away from the old town.

It’s a youth hostel so it had that creepy institutional feel to it. It didn’t help that Raffy kept making jokes about ghosts in the hallways and the bathroom mirrors so I was always freaked whenever I had to go to the bathroom.

We got our own room with six beds. We liked it because it was spacious and had massive windows. They gave us disposable pillow cases, bed sheets and blankets, similar to the ones used at clinics and hospitals.

We were on the second floor and the showers and toilets (separate for men and women) were all the way at one end of the corridor. They were equipped with automatic lights that turned off before you could finish your business, which can be damned annoying – not to mention spooky! – when you’re alone in there and have to exit your cubicle to try to find the lights.

This was the first albergue where we cooked. Well, Stephen and Alan did.

The breakfast was really good and they had excellent coffee.