Tuesday July 18, 29.9km/18.6mi

Hill above Elizondo (54.4km/310m) (España) to Roncesvalles Village (87.4km/945m) (España)

We were camped in a grassy field, so everything was soaked with dew when we woke up. I finally left at 8:30am, which gave my tent a little time to dry. I backtracked back to town, and went to the hardware store to buy some stove fuel. They actually had some in stock! It was a happy moment.

After that I walked down the street to a phone store and bought another SIM card, since my current one does not work in the Spain.

And finally, I stopped at a bakery to grab a fresh baguette. They are surprisingly great for hiking.

As I walked out of town I passed by a cool ancient church, with lots of old stonework and stained glass windows.

I walked back up to the hill, up the same steep road I had come down an hour earlier.

Since I had taken a detour, it took me a couple of hours on local trails to rejoin the HRP. Once I was on top I had the usual grand views through Basque country farmland.

I really like the trail junction signs out here, they’re very informative.

I could see down into the deep valley where the town of Aldudes was located, and where I would be passing through very soon.

It was a very steep but easy descent down a dirt road to the town. Aldudes was tiny, with not much more than one main street with a general store and a restaurant.

I grabbed a mid afternoon meal at the restaurant, and finally left town at 4pm to make the steep climb. It started with stairs!

It quickly turned into a rocky traverse of the steep hillside.

As I climbed higher, it seemed like the cloud level was lowering.

I hiked by a herd of cows on a hilltop, they did not seem to care that I was there.

And 20 minutes later, I had traversed around the ridge and I could see the cows from a distance in silhouette against the sky. Cool.

And then the fog really moved in! It was neat at first, but then it got cold and felt very damp.

For an hour I hiked through meadows of ferns, where I had no views in the fog.

Visibility was so low, that a herd of sheep and I surprised each other.

It was easy hiking and as long as I was moving I was comfortable. If I stopped for a longer break, I would get cold in the damp fog.

The foggy forests do look really cool though.

And I suspect it is damp up here frequently, given the size of the slugs.

I hiked downhill on a small dirt road, and then came to a pass where a highway crossed over.

There was another cool old church on the pass, which was kind of random since there were no other buildings nearby.

Given the miserably wet weather up here on the pass, and it was also very windy, I decided to hike the 20 minutes down to the village of Roncesvalles.

This village is on one of the Camino routes, so there is a big hostel building for the “pilgrims”, as walkers of the camino are called.

I grabbed dinner at the local inn/restaurant, it’s a good thing restaurants are open late here in Spain as it was almost 9pm when I had dinner!

After dinner I grabbed a room, as I didn’t feel like setting up my tent in the blowing mist and fog.