After our lively evening in Santa Cruz and Genevilla, we couldn't quite pull ourselves out of bed as early as we intended, so we enjoyed the peach juice, bread, and lemon pound cake Maribel and Guy had waiting for our breakfast and set out for our day's walk shortly after 10 am. It was a solid day walking that began along a gravel road and led us through the tiny town of Cabredo. Immediately from this town we followed a steep trail uphill through various stones and weeds until we reached a highway. From there we walked along the highway for about 5 km, winding back and forth to the top of a mountain (fortunately the incline was manageable and didn't leave us out of breath). At the top of the mountain, we passed through the tiny town of Lapoblacion and began to make the descent into what we could see was a vast expanse of fields - there didn't seem to be any more mountains in front of us today :).
Our downhill walk led us through yet another tiny town, this one called Meano, and there our path took us off the road and into a wooded area. All seemed to be going well as we made our way steadily downhill, navigating a rocky path, until Greg noticed we were no longer on track with the GPS route we were following. We attempted to cut through the woods and get back on track, but we had no success, so instead we continued following the path we were on to the bottom of the hill. At the foot of the mountain we considered following GPS to rejoin the original path, but chose instead to follow the highway, which was more direct and allowed us to avoid some of the flies that plagued us in the woods and fields. Shortly, on the highway, we met our original route again and continued along it past the town of Cripan.
We had no trouble following the way from here, as much of it ran along the highway. Eventually, we started passing vineyards so we knew we were in or nearing La Rioja, Spain's famed wine region. In this area, our directions led us off the highway and onto gravel roads that wound us past vineyard after vineyard. In this way we walked around Elvillar, and eventually our destination of Laguardia came into sight.
In an effort to follow the last bit of our directions to enter Laguardia, we came upon some very intense barking dogs who did not seem to be restrained by fence or leash, so we backtracked just a bit and took the next road that led into town instead. Laguardia sits up on a hill and is an old walled city, so we climbed the hill without much trouble, entered the walled area, and found our hostel just a little way off a main square and very close to one of the churches, San Juan. Today we traveled 27.5 km in 5.5 hours!
Checked in, we addressed the shower and laundry necessities but found there was no stopper for the sink drain (this had happened once before and trying to plug the sink with an upside down glass didn't have particularly worthwhile results). This time we opted for just rinsing a couple of things with the hope of doing a better wash tomorrow night. Then we took a walk around town, excited to explore this town that attracts many tourists in pursuit of vineyard tours and delicious wine; we also hoped to find mass times for Sunday. Unfortunately, both the churches of San Juan and Santa Maria appeared to be completely locked up. Since restaurants were in the in between time after lunch and before late dinner, we picked up some bread, had a snack and rest back in our room, and went out for a late pizza around 8:30 pm. During dinner, the doors of Santa Maria were open, so Greg was able to find out that mass would be held at 10 am at San Juan and at noon at Santa Maria on Sunday. This would require us to begin our walk later than we hoped, so we planned to leave Laguardia quite early and hopefully make it to our destination in time to attend mass there. With a delicious barbeque sausage pizza in our stomachs, we fell asleep quickly!
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