Our Camino de Santiago Day 5 was the first day that we started walking at 7am, the hostel room had 10 beds but everyone was really quiet when they got up, or we were in a really deep sleep from all last nights free wine. The only problem that we could see with the hostel was it was right beside a church and they started to ring its bells at 6am.
Estella is only 14km from Cirauqui and Villamayor de Monjardin is 24km away. We felt that if we stopped in either town that it would be very early in the day and we would be eager to keep moving. The only problem is that there is a distance of 11.5km from Villamayor de Monjardin to Los Arcos without any rest stops or hostels between them. This would mean that we are committed to Los Arcos if we leave Villamayor de Monjardin and it would potentially be late afternoon and very warm.
If we walk from Cirauqui to Los Arcos, this will be a distance of over 35km walked in the one day and potentially the longest that we have ever walked in the one day. Bring it on, we love a good challenge
It was a lovely cool morning but we both knew it was forecast to be a hot day. We walked out of the Albergue at 7am in just shorts and T-shirts. We leave Cirauqui by walking between the arch underneath the houses. We follow a dirt track out of the town, the path is only wide enough to fit one person at a time and is slightly overgrown.
We cross over 2 small bridges while also passing vineyards on both sides of the path. Just before we reach Lorca we walk underneath a road underpass. It took us 1 hour and 5 minutes to reach Lorca, it was now 08:05 am and time for some breakfast.
We stopped in Lorca in the centre of the town at Albergue de Lorca for some breakfast. It seemed like everyone had the same idea. The Albergue coffee shop was quite packed but we managed to get a decent breakfast. There wasn’t much seating space in the Cafe, we just got 2 coffees and 2 bocadillos (Spanish sandwich) and kept on walking.
Waking out of the town, we walked downhill toward the main road, we walked for about 300m on the main road the path then cut back in toward a small gravel path and we walked beside lots of corn fields until we reached Villatuerta Puente.
It took us 1 hour 25 minutes to walk from Lorca to Villatuerta-4.7km (This included a stop for breakfast)
We left Villatuerta on another small gravel path, which cuts through more cornfields. Within 10 minutes of walking, we walked under a Pedestrian road underpass, which looked pretty new. 5 Minutes after this we walked over a pedestrian footbridge.
We reached Estella 15 minutes after this bridge.
Estella is one of the designated stops on the Camino but it was only 10:05am and we had only covered 14km, no way were we stopping. Estella did seem like a pretty good town to explore but we could spend much time here because we had a long day of walking ahead. We visited the church in the centre of town and picked up some supplies for a picnic later on in the afternoon.
Walking out of Estella, toward Irache feels like we leave one large town and walking straight into a small village. We seem to be continually surrounded by houses, factories and warehouses. Just as we feel that we are leaving Irache and quite possibly walked past the wine fountain by mistake, we see an industrial building and security fencing to our RHS. As we get closer to a gate, we realise its the wine fountain. Thankfully when we reached it there was no one there, this changed rapidly with cyclists stopping and filling it up in seconds.
We waited for our turn in the crowd and got some lovely free wine, which was very tasty. The tap only lets the wine out very slowly so you can only really get a small amount of wine. The wine fountain has a webcam be sure to look at it here
We walked 2 minutes further up the road and try to visit the Irache museum but unfortunately, it was closed. We went into the Monastery church across the road instead.
It took us 50 minutes to walk from Estella to Irache but that included a couple of breaks
After we came out of the Monastery, we started our walk to Azqueta. We walked on a wide gravel path sandwiched between fields on one side and a large stone wall on the other side until we hit the main road. We then followed the tarmac road until we reached Asador Cafe. We stopped here to use the toilet and get some ice-cream as the day was getting hot and we needed cooling down.
After our Ice-creams, we continued toward Azqueta. The Camino followed a small road until it turned into a gravel path. We walk into Azqueta was slightly hilly and extremely hot. Just as we came into the village we passed a lovely field of heathers. There wasn’t much to see in the village so we continued walking without stopping.
It was now 13:00 and it was extremely hot. It took us 1 hour 30 minutes to reach Azqueta from Irache.
We walked through Azqueta without stopping. Our goal was to reach Villamayor de Monjardin early and then assess our strength levels to see could we walk to Los Archos. Villamayor de Monjardin is only 1.5km away from Azqueta but walking at mid-day is always hard. This section felt very hard because it was so exposed. There were no nice trees to get shelter under and we were walking uphill. Just as we reached Fuente Medieval fountain we caught our first sight Villamayor de Monjardin.
It took us 25 minutes to reach Villamayor de Monjardin from Azqueta
We get some snacks and a couple of cold drinks in a bar. We had now walked 24km and it was only 13:30. We felt good but we weren’t sure if we were able for another 12km without stopping. While we sat down, we read our guidebook about the route that lay ahead. After consulting the guidebook and speaking to other Pilgrims, we decided to continue onto Los Arcos.
We left Villamayor de Monjardin at 14:15, the temperature was 38 degrees when we were leaving so we brought loads of extra water and applied lots of factor 50 sun cream.
Just as we left Villamayor de Monjardin we walked past a couple of vineyards but the majority of this walk was taken up with corn fields and small gravel paths. We had mentally prepared ourselves to be walking for 3+ hours without any supply stops so to our absolute delight, 1 hour and 15 minutes into this section we met a man selling food and drink out of a van. We couldn’t believe it our luck, plus he was just closing up as he said the majority of pilgrims had already passed.
We sat down at the food van getting drinks and shade out of the blistering sun. This man picked a perfect spot to park his food van. Gina got a stamp on our passports just before we left.
It was now 5.7km to Los Arcos from here. On the first section of this walk, we didn’t meet any other walkers but quickly started passing people on this stage. The surrounding countryside doesn’t change that much in this 12km section, it seems all the farmers grow corn or grapes here.
We eventually reached Los Arcos at 17:00 and did the 12km in 2 hours 45 minutes which was not too bad with a stop in the middle for some drinks. We walked down through the town visiting Albergues as we passed, but they were all full. We walked past the church and the main square and walked out to the Municipal Albergue, which thankfully still had 8 spare beds left in a 72-bed hostel, it filled up with 20 minutes of us arriving. There are 36 beds in our dormitory tonight and unfortunately, our beds are beside the door.
We quickly got showered and changed and we both decided we were too tired to cook dinner. We went back into the square outside the church and treated ourselves to pizza and a Paella.
The church in Los Arcos was one of the nicest churches we visited on the Camino so be sure to pay it a visit.
We walked 35 km today. The walked the last 12km from Villamayor de Monjardin to Los Arcos in 2 hours 45 minutes