“You have to work really hard to get lost on the Camino, honey. You just follow the yellow arrows. They are everywhere.” An answer to my daughter’s worried question a week ago.

And so, of course, we got lost this morning.

But before that, there was this…a lovely goat path winding for several miles up and down.

Mysterious ruins common along the way in the middle of nowhere.

In some places, there are variations on the route. They are marked and talked about in the book and on the app, but who reads directions? Certainly not me.

We are almost to Estella, we could see the church steeple very close and the road we were on seemed to me like the road I took the last time. But because I had not read anything this morning on the route, I did not realize there was an alternate. So when Pascale, noticed a marker with an arrow going up into the woods I was confused. My intuition said to stay on the road. But a yellow arrow is a yellow arrow when you’re on the Camino. And so we went into the woods.

It was beautiful walk, and there were stone markers along the way just like there normally would be on a Camino path, but still I felt uneasy as I could tell we were passing Estella.

Our main problem at this point is that we had had no coffee or breakfast when we left this morning. We were counting on stopping in Estella for a much needed caffeine break. It soon became obvious that was not happening.

Thank God for modern technology. Pascale pulled out her phone, got out her Maps app, and it got us out of the woods and back to the Camino with only a little bit of backtracking.

Then follows adventures in ordering food. Which you have to be prepared for when traveling in a country that you are not speaking the language.

I knew that the woman was saying a lot of other things, options, rapidly when I was trying to order and I was just nodding my head “Si, si”. I wasn’t really sure what I had ordered, I didn’t really care. I knew she got the coffee order right. Main thing at this point. I ordered a large cafe con leche and got a 6 ounce cup instead of a 4 ounce cup. Europeans must be shocked at the size of coffee’s when they order from Starbucks in America. And then I got this huge sandwich with eggs, cheese and ham. Not something I usually allow myself to eat, but  I had earned it, and the bread was unbelievably fresh warm and delicious. And the fresh squeezed orange juice here is especially good.

View from our bedroom window. We haven’t determined yet how often the bells ring, but more than likely at least once an hour.

Buen Camino everyone everyone , I’ll see you tomorrow