Day 4: el sol!

Hi friends and family! It's Katie. Bea loves 3rd person writing, but it's just a bit awk for me. Ok, so yesterday was incredible! As seen from the pictures posted yesterday. Not only did we not have rain, but we saw the sun!!! We started the day a bit late and enjoyed a wonderful breakfast at a cafe. The coffee here keeps getting better with every step closer to Santiago. We finally left the city around 9, which is an hour and a half later than we usually leave. We had a shorter trek today, yet it ended up taking a very long time. The seven of us left together, but about 5k in, we lost Sara and Justin, an American couple. Sara pulled a tendon in her leg and needed to go very slowly. The Camino Bobsled team continued quietly through fields of yellow immortels, red poppies, and green wheat. Everyone is dealing with their own aches and pains. Bea has knee pain and my feet are just covered in blisters from my heels to in between my big toe. This path was very rocky so it was not easy on our feet. Even though everyone goes at their own pace, we pass and repass 

different groups multiple times. We've all grown to know each other. There is a couple traveling together from Oklahoma/Arizona. We passed them yesterday as the woman was rubbing her feet, we asked if she was alright, she said that once she starts up again she has decided to love the pebbles from now on. There are 2 guys from Canada traveling with one of the guy's 10 year old son. As we started climbing a very big hill, the one that leads up to the copper figures overlooking the vista, the 10 year old bolted past me on my struggly way up, overflowing with energy. There are other people that we have met from sharing a hostel bunk or a meal. It really becomes a Camino family out here. It really renews my faith in humanity, which is one of the reasons I wanted to do this. Today was a bit brisk in temperature, dry, and windy. We ate a quick lunch by a fountain we found which a Spanish pilgrim to us was the Devil's Fountain. 

The view from the top of the hill was incredible. The descent however was challenging. The surface was made of big pebbles. It was hard to get your footing. Bea was as to conquer it quickly. I had a hard time. The rocks kept hitting my blisters and it hurt so bad. Through all this I think I started walking weirdly to prevent the blisters from being hit. That's when my knee started to hurt, just a little bit. I hardly thought anything of it. We all met up at the bottom. We slowly made our way to our destination with many stops in between. We found a lovely hostel for 5euro. I washed all my clothes because it was finally necessary. I rested my feet and then we headed out to dinner. Dinner was amazing. 3 courses, wine, and water for 10euro. The food was great and the company was even better! After that I hung up the laundry to dry, we spent a bit of time on the Internet, and then headed to bed.