Day twenty one, 21 May 2015,
Villafranca Montes de Oca to Ages,
Started @ 6.30am till 11.30 am (16 kilometres)~ 5 hours

I started very early as the first five kilometres was ALL uphill! I am very, very slow going up, hence everybody overtakes me, and if I go early, I can look at the beautiful things on the way, dream and think. There was a lovely forest at the top of the hill, with lovely hen and chicken ferns in bright green. Stunning beautiful. At the top of the high hill there was a monument, one of the Spanish civil war I believe. I couldn’t translate all that it said, but it talked about body’s found on the Camino! Need to google this! The walk was very pleasant, we had a lovely breakfast in San Juan de Ortega, which could have been a lovely village, and it will be soon, but at the moment the village is being repaired! An interesting church and or Monestary. I was too tired to find out. We met Esther from New Zealand who had walked over 44kilometres the day before and had hurt her foot! I suggested that may be she should take it easy for the day and she told me that she was going to, and only walk twenty five kilometres! Hm! I know we are all on our own path, but may be I am incredibly lazy! This is my day 21, and Esther was on day seven! Oops! Ah well, we are walking for different reasons for sure! I decided NOT to stop in San Juan, may be feeling a tad guilty after all? So the three of us walked on to Ages. It was a lovely all the way down hill walk and not hard at all. We stayed in a lovely private house with Anja, from Norway, who used to be a doctor in Africa. Fascinating woman, wish I could have spoken to her in more depth. We explored the very little town, Esther decided to walk on, and so we, Libby and me, looked around and ended up in a small cafe, restaurant and shop of Antonio and his wife. We had some lovely red wine, and Antonio only served us some tapas with the very first glass! When his wife found out she lashed out at him and he dutifully made us more lovely little bites! Delicious! It was warm, cosy and great wifi! Why move? At Anja’s place we stayed by donation only, on a mattress on the floor, was fabulous! Great view we had some delicious pizza for a late lunch, mine with lots of pepperoni which made my stomach upset for most of the night! Either that or the cheeses that were on it! So I was like a yo yo in and out of bed most of the night! Which turned out to be all right as the young people above me were very noisy and kept on moving something on the floor most of the night! Anja asked me if that was us making that noise, and I could clarify that I was too busy running up and down the toilet most of the night, so truly the culprits were these young chickadees! We had a lovely albeit simple breakfast and chatted to Anja, before going to Antonio’s shop to buy the necessary chocolate and bananas.

Today’s lesson: ASK ~BELIEVE~RECEIVE
Today’s gift: Finally got warm as we had a heater in the room!