Day 3: Estalle to Los Arcos- La Fuente de Vino

Another great day on the trail!!!

Last night we cooked a great pasta dish with roasted red pepper, chorizo, bacon, mushrooms, and onions. It was stupendous! We shared some with a homeless puppetteer from England who was definitely a character.

For day 3 we went 21 km. It was relatively flat the whole way and amazingly beautiful. ¨Softly undulating¨ hills (as our guide book likes to call them) were covered with a mix of reddening vineyards and pine trees.

The big highlight for the day was the fuente de vino (wine fountain) . We came to it within our first hour walking. It is simply a fountain - open to all with no one there to guard it- that has two spigots, one for agua and one for wine. You put your cup or water bottle under the wine spigot and pour to your hearts content. We only had a sip, but a lot of peregrinos came out with whole water bottles full.

There´s a sign there saying that drinking this wine will give you the strength and vitality to finish the camino. Let´s hope that´s true!! I also enjoyed the sign posted that you had to be over 18 to drink the wine. There´s supposed to be a web cam watching the peregrinos drinking the wine if you want to check it out: www.irache.com

I love Europes more relaxed attitude towards alcohol! There are also vending machines in almost every alburgue with beer for sale.

The weather today was again excellent. There were some ominous clouds, but it never rained and it made for some lovely pictures. We are also still blister free and not too sore yet.

Our alburgue today is very lovely again. The owner- Nacho- lived in Chicago and CA and was raving about the states.

We got in around 3 and I did some laundry with the first dryer I´ve seen in Europe.

Tonight we made a big group dinner for all 17 peregrinos. Justin and I cooked roasted veggies with garlic and blue cheese. It went over well.

The highlight of the evening was when the giant pot of tomato sauce they were cooking fell to the floor with only us and this Italian man in the room. I went to go get stuff to clean with, but the Italian man just put the pot right side up on the floor and started scooping all the pasta sauce back into the pot with his bare hands. All I could do was laugh! He got all of it back in, the whole time ¨shhhing¨us with his fingers. He added some spices, water, and cooked it some more. And then we ate it!!! And it was pretty great - although a little crunchy at times.

Excited for tomorrow!! We are either going for a very short day or a very long day depending on how we feel.

Thanks for all the advice and weather updates!! If anyone has any questions just let us know!!
Buen camino para todo!!