Last night was noisy. A metal bunk night is bad at the best of times but this was a Saturday night in Spain - need I say more. Why do Spaniards have to shout all of the time? This morning the cockerel started at about 5.30 and then the church bells began at six. Added to this I was on the top bunk which had no side rail and so I spent the night worrying about falling out!! David and Jennifer had gone already so they couldn't have had a great night either! I managed to lift Anne's spirits by reuniting her with her knickers which were in my backpack with yesterday's clean washing. It was dark when we left and there was nowhere open for breakfast - there wasn't even a vending machine dispensing that sweet brown froth they called cafe con leche! But we were now used to finding a cafe or van or somewhere selling breakfast early on the way each day so soldiered on even though we were probably a tiny bit worse for wear after the beers and cava and wine we had the night before which was such a good idea at the time! There was a story going around about an Irish couple who had, that morning, walked 10 miles along the way in the wrong direction!! They passed us a while later and told their story which was very funny. They had left when it was dark and had no torch so couldn't see the shells and arrows properly. After a while when it began to get light they just felt the road wasn't right and they hadn't seen any discarded toilet paper for a while! You need to have walked some part of the Camino to truly get that one! So they had to find the right path and then realised not only were they not on it but were travelling in the wrong direction! I mentioned national stereotypes earlier in this blog and these two really didn't do much for their fellow Irishmen! But they were still in such high spirits and their story lifted the spirits of all of us pilgrims with rumbling tummies. The road was going on without anything promising on the horizon. Colm, the Northern Irish guy travelling with his sister who had done the Camino before, said there were 2 villages ahead but the second one was better with a lovely cafe with views. He was complaining still of toothache and we offered drugs! So we walked through the first village on to the second only to find everything closed as they had had a fiesta the night before. There was a little shop selling machine coffee and some food so we breakfasted rather miserably on the pavement and checked our compedes! We rejoined Fiona who we had left guarding the rucksacks and who had enjoyed her time chatting to pilgrims while we were scouring the very hilly village for our dream breakfast venue. Back on the road we immediately could see a map of the world made out of box hedging (minus New Zealand). On the outskirts of Lorca we got talking to some Californians who looked after troubled teenage girls and knew of Brighton as they had looked after a Brightonian girl called Jenny Gibbs now Schneider!! They were an interesting couple who had obviously lived all over the world and she spoke 7 languages! We were delighted to find that the cafes were open in Lorca for loos and lunch. David and Jennifer had got their earlier and had eaten paella which they hadn't been able to get the night before in Puenta Del Reina. I quite fancied a little paella snack but when I was charged 9.50 euros I realised I must have ordered a little more than a snack. As all my fellow pilgrims sat on the street with their bocadillos and tortilla I was presented with a proper metal paella dish, knife fork and placemat! I wouldn't have minded looking pretentious if the paella had been tasty! The oz contingent arrived and found it amusing though - so pleased we provided some entertainment along the way! After lunch there was more of the stony terrain and the path was often quite narrow. The annoying loud American woman from Orisson was in front of us with a couple of others and when a couple of bikers came from behind she panicked and was hit by one of the bikes. She went down with quite a thump and as the path was so rocky we (and she) were worried she had hit her head on a rock! The emergency services arrived in no time in the shape of Doctor Jenny with a wet wipe and Nurse Jackie. I was calming the cyclist down and soon all was ok. She had quite a bump and it turned out she was a doctor too! Drama over we walked down into Estelle at about 3pm but with nowhere booked to stay. We passed a hostel in a block of flats which didn't look great. Feet were getting heavy and so we decided to take off our packs at the first cafe we came to and Anne, Jackie and I would go off to find somewhere to sleep. The first hostel we came to had tiny bunks, sweaty half dressed men and smelled of cooking - I put on my 'I am not impressed with this accommodation and don't want to stay here' face - an expression Francis is all too familiar with! We walked to the outskirts of town and found the youth hostel which, although it was up another hill and had metal bunks, was spacious, clean and we could have a room for 6 with a key!!! Back to the cafe with our good news - the other 3 had got chatting to a couple of Briitish biker boys (old men really!) who were just starting the Camino. They had also formed an attachment to the proprietor who had been kind to them and felt we had to return later for his Pilgrims' menu (a Fiona led initiative!). Fiona, our nun magnet, had also picked up a nun the day before - Sister Jo from near Boston, who she invited to join us for dinner. The sweet proprietor who had said to book to avoid disappointment welcomed us into his empty restaurant and showed us to our table - all decorated with plastic flowers! The food was below average but served with such love and enthusiasm especially my cheese which was served in the shape of a Camino shell - a dollop of strawberry jam serving as the base! He warmed our hearts! Back at the hostel we tried unsuccessfully to book somewhere for the following night in Los Arcos and came to a decision to book in the next village Sansol which was 7k on. We had to get to that hostel by 3 and I think we all felt a bit under pressure by that and we're all a bit worried about whether we would be up to doing it. But the metal bunks were calling and we were soon to bed after a very long tiring day.