I wish I were one of those people who can just go back to sleep when they wake up in the morning.
I wait in my sleeping bag until that gets boring. I pull some clothes in the sleeping bag with me and get dressed before stepping out. We had left all our remaining groceries in a bag on the picnic table, hoping that no cats or mice would be attracted to it during the night. Everything still seemed to be there, and I started putting things out for breakfast. Anabel was waking up.
After breakfast we continued along the pilgrim/bicycle trail. Last night around dusk there had been a lot of cyclists, but now it was practically empty.
"Many of our best cyclists are from the Basque country," Anabel had said.
I eventually found another staff and followed her example of walking with two. My feet were getting blistered and needed all the support they could get. My knee, too, was feeling sensitive.
A man walked alongside us for a while. He found it quaint that we were traveling such a long way. He himself was not a traveler at all, he told us. But he did have to do this walk every morning because of his health condition.
Once again, I lost interest in the conversation after a while, and started lagging behind while Anabel continued talking to the man for the better part of an hour. When our ways parted we were almost at the beach of La Arena.
I had been saying that I might take a swim once we got to the beach. Anabel told me that was crazy, it was way too cold. At the time, this comment had strengthened my resolve even more, but now that we were actually at the beach, I did not have much desire to get in the water. It would involve changing clothes, and there were no dressing-rooms in sight. I took off my shoes and waded around for a bit. Then we walked across to the other side of the beach, where the trail was to continue. Anabel posed with our walking staffs for a picture.
