A rebel without a clue.

Weather has changed. Finally! Rain and grey skies, alternating with sunny spells. Nice small village on a hill side to hang in today. Not in the same brutal expectant for the morrow. Stopping at Logrono - famous for La Rioja. First Cahors now I'm in La Rioja: they'll be no complaints about the wine, however the queso campagna is very average. Must go out of my way to find a special cheese to stick with a robust but yielding vino tinto. What more do you need? Brebis? Hung about until seven for our pelegrino supper. Three courses, bread, wine and water for only €10. Pleasures of conversations too. Bo, elisa, guy. A dane and two bretons. My broken French is exactly like 'allo 'allo policeman. Not too impressed with the green label Rioja; the lower levels of that wine are using the DOC moniker, but they're not more than vin du table. Rioja needs to re-assert it's expectations and firmly say no the wine calling itself Rioja! The ball of my left foot feels crushed u...

Awake upon the merry dawn chorus earlier and before you sleep too much. Looking up the stars still shine as I shoulder my pack and begin this 29 kilometres. 5:45. Walk before the dawn arrived in the last stop for nine kilometres. Breakfast stop. Wait for the local bar to open for bocodillo and cafe. I set off with a Spanish lady, French couple and Danish priest. Maybe he's going too fast. I said see you soon. My legs need solace at 700 metres. Between Monjardin and Los Arcos it is an unbroken 9 kilometres. Petit dejourner now until 8:30. I feel insane! Finally reached Los Archos... That road went on forever. Stopped. Thought of stopping for a while, but the sun wasn't out... Don't chance your luck! So I pick up two huge oranges and a Danone yogurt drink. From 5.7kms you can see two villages and I sure hope the closer is our bed for today? As it gets closer I feel that the bastards have led me here just to inform me my stop is another few leagues off. Facking buggered! 14...

Distinct lack of energy: we're all zapped like tortured flies. Everyone is together alone. Some somnobulant readers, sleepers and I drawing freestyle. Now wolfing down pasas sin pepitas and glass duo of garanacha/ grenache noir. Two danes have heads in fiction. Partneren/Khans Skat. We're all in a trance; bewitched by the croaking and chirping. Adios amigos? Frau hacks at bread with a blunt spoon. We are lack want. None move very quickly if at all; it strikes me it is some opium den. Quick tour of the ville but even at 7pm it is shouting it is hot; 30°. Quick hello bueno to two female skinheads from Torino, both femme? One has very bad knees. Everyone has a bad mechanism lazy city walking doesn't require attention to the position of feet, knees and hips. I learnt this in France. All these guys out of Saint Jean Pied Pont are suffering terribly. We walk without marching correctly. Fini. Got some bananas, prunes, figs and a can of Coke Zero to skip along the Camino by 6:30...

Snakes in the grass go wild in the country, at around caza de reserva where the frogs were croaking, he passed me and then watched my onwards journey. We bothered each other but briefly. I saw some very old vines just near to the first village after Puente la Reina: Mañeru. I ventured to get groceries in Estella took a turn round the centre and found a bodegas artisanale. Me thinks €8 for old vine garanacha isn't too bad to confirm my feelings. Laderas de Montejurra, Emiliovalerio. Back to consume my unvaried lentil and pea from a can with a carrot of the pickled sort. Je suis le Gourmand, Non? Well the vin rouge knocks panties off all wine since Cahors; nice action Navarra old vine Garanacha. One glass and then a siesta it is 16:04 here but might be 14:04 really. That is what the sundial says. That is what the sun says. That is why it was so hot at ten, eleven and twelve: bastards! European central time fucks with your mind. I'm now overheating and can only wear my gaudi Can...

Cerveza from a vending machine: a buck? Nice idea! San Miguel not so hot, but it is ok? Sat in the Jardin with Seanan playing scales; or is that another person? Cathal reads Mort in the sun and I have another blister on the same toe as on the Aubrac. Nana stretches her left leg in the shade. A couple of hours and I'm tired, but maybe also full of gay fever. Yep. My nose is gay, my eyes are gay and my throat is gayer too. Listening to the auberge I'm wakened from my drifting via Australian voices. Which is damn odd. I feel a kin of that voice. New Zealand too. A homeless man I rewrite his worth. I substitute on for at. He lives 'on' the street ... What arrogance. Now he knows where he lives on Inglasis. Drops his pencil in the gutter. Drunk as a Skunk. I think of all the ciders outside of the West Country Asturias is closest. Good truth. Apples. Sour. Cloudy. Off back to sleep well. Really great being back on the way. ... Mad Spaniards coming into the only place to ...

In Pamplona we're in four rows, 2 deep on either side of what was once a church, couple of doors down from the main Cathedral. You are assigned a bed in order and once there are no more beds? Keep walking. There are 28 beds in 14 bunks on this right wing and the same is repeated above me and on the left hand side; roughly 120 beds. Plenty of space in a cloistered space to dry clothes. Jesus Y Maria. The people I've briefly spoken to are a variety of ethnicities, and the age group stretches further too. My wind is not really in my sails today so I've planned what I'm wearing tomorrow, but I don't feel alive or vital yet. I listened to the Bayern master pianist without really caring what he was playing, or how well. I thought he'd said he was from Bolivia not Bavaria. I am off. Switched off. My stomach sighing is concerning me as this is a community dorm and I can't go letting off steam without a few sour looks. It seems perfectly reasonable for me to go the J...

Sleepless in Girona. Sleeping in Pamplona. Another crazy night of booming voices, late arrivals and plenty of stomping feet; mopeds and motorbikes scretching; guitars wailing, gulls foiling; car alarms bawling; Spanish hombres singing, shouting and slagging; me flailing the dark! This ain't no place to be able to sleep through the chorus and awaken raring to take my seat; plaça catalunya. Wil.I.am and Justin Bieber 7am Girona oh yeah! I'm sat as far as I could get. Why is it so mono and unreal. Katie Perry: I'm taking my stuff and going. My pelerin pendant has vanished and I almost in my haste left no. 2 flask. Who is it writes and produces such dreadfully awful and empty popular music? It is so bad and evil that we're being subjected to either 24hr terror on the airwaves or transmission in one corner or 24hrs mindlessly unmusical frantic gibberish. I depart as soon as I consume a watery coffee and confide to the night security man how insane the music would make me. A...