Day: April 16, 2026

April 15: Walking Day, Uterga to Cirauqui

Miles of walking: 10.5

Floors climbed: 82

Calories burned per my Fitbit app: 2429

Coffee and a little ham and cheese and bread breakfast was served at the albergue between 6 and 7 so we got a very early start!

What a beautiful walk out of Uterga. Charlie took this video: https://photos.app.goo.gl/Ncp25ZE4gdrigUW9A

There are big fields of mustard plants. I assume these are farmed and not just weeds. Solid yellow color. At first I thought they were rape plants (canola) but close up we were able to identify them as mustard.

We are definitely in farm country. Starting to see huge fields of wheat (I think) and also starting to see vineyards and even some olive trees.

Just leaving Uterga. Fields of mustard. Plus wheat.
I had the bottom bunk in the corner. Charlie the bottom bunk next to me. They were good solid beds. Didn’t shake when someone turned over or climbed up and down the ladder.
In Puente la Reina on the street as we walked through. I thought it was a pretty still life.
Group dinner in the albergue. That’s Hyen (Korea/New York) on the left and Cathleen (Germany) in the middle. The man on the right was from Denmark. There were 8 of us at the table. 5 of us were from the USA, counting Hyen.
Terrace with large table at the albergue.

April 16: Walking Day Cirauqui to Villatuerta

Miles walked: 8.9

Flights of stairs climbed equivalent per my watch: 63 (i.e., some up and down but not too bad)

One of those miles we walked today was from our albergue to the restaurant where we had lunch, and back. So, a relatively short distance covered today. It’s always tricky finding towns just the right distance apart. We aim for 8 miles give or take one or two.

We’ve gotten so far behind in our blogging. The past few days have been especially hectic. Last night, as mentioned, we stayed in an albergue room with 8 sleepers (including one pretty bad snorer). I’ll describe the albergue in my April 15 post. Which means I’ll probably be posting things in backwards order for the next few posts. There wasn’t a good place to blog at the albergue and no bar in the town to go to for that. There was a large table to sit at the albergue but it was filled with friendly and talkative pilgrims so no chance to blog there.

I didn’t sleep well last night. The snorer was in the bunk above me, a nice woman from northern California. Then I worried that maybe I would snore, too, although Charlie has never complained. He says I only make “sleepy noises” but I’m never sure if he’s just being nice to me. Then at midnight I remembered I’d forgotten to arrange the bag transfer for this morning. I tried to do it online on my phone in my bed (quietly) but they wouldn’t accept it so late.

The bag transfer story has a happy ending. There was another bag in the waiting area to be shipped by Jacotrans, the company we’ve been using, so we were able to leave a Jacotrans envelope on our bag with money in it and instructions and they took our bag when they came for the other person’s bag. Whew!

More about today in photos:

Today’s path. Up ahead, that’s Cathleen from Germany and Hyun from Korea (but 20 years in New York). We got to know them pretty well from the past two nights in two different albergues.
Candice from Australia, a retired school teacher. We talked with her a long time at the albergue yesterday and she popped up today where we’d stopped for coffee (sitting out front of the bar). Always fun to see someone we’d met before.
We walked through a few tunnels today. They are usually under roadways.
Some of today’s path was an old Roman road. And over an old Roman bridge!
Our albergue for tonight. We have a really nice private room.
And our room has a window!