A rebel without a clue.

Truthfully this was a challenging six days. Walking in this heat, through the Costa and up the Ebro has made me wonder... Tomorrow morning I am walking to the end of the Delta: Ruimar, before the space and heat can undo me (and leave me starring into the corner of the apartment: like an imbecile)! And now I am discovering many many bites on my head. The kind of nibbles are some I have known before, but didn't associate with bedbugs! Perhaps I've had them with me more often than I care to recall? For instance in Villahermosa, and then on a long distance coach between Chiquimula and Flores and I am almost sure in Oaxaca... I blamed Mosquitoes, but they were innocent... *** What would I do if a woman gave me a gift I've not been presented with since 2012... I've no idea! Perhaps I'd run, speedily, to the hills from which I descended this morning? I went to Lidl to buy coffee for the Italian espresso stove top they've in the apartment and I...

Walking across town from the Hostal Virginia (€30), where I had shower and relaxed an hour under the welcome Aircon and it's all about different pharmacy led displays suggesting the temperature is climbing steadily towards the mid thirties. Imagine walking in the afternoon without any shade along the side of that canal - It'd kill me for sure. Is there somewhere in Spain where the thermometer is not gradually increasing so I can hide away? Staring at four walls isn't ideal, although there is some physical relief, but bordem levels increases and I get a little neurotic about tomorrow. Now I am lacking motivation to carry on on the Camino del Ebro. It's too hot to do much, but I can't control it. Imagine working in it? Perhaps I stop the Camino... There will be other times. Perhaps I head back to the coast and stay near the sea? I know there is a sea breeze and the sea to take the edge off. Tomorrow the suggestion is to  walk as far as Benifallet and make a decision a...

Day two over. No room in the Inn up ahead in Xerta and the Ayuntamiento isn't open to help. Better a Hostal here in Tortosa than miles from nowhere with 34 degrees adding to the mixer? After many a minute trying to find anywhere around here in the Office de Tourism I am sent back the way I was struggling: after the Antic Pont del Ferrocarril I thought 'can I continue on if necessary'? Central Mercat, huge, so now have Garantxa and a plate of chorizo, jamon and tripa. I almost missed out Tortosa because I didn't want to detour on such a warm day if I had to carry on to Xerta. But I don't. Tomorrow I pass through it as i hit the more demanding section if I didn't just go on the GR99 instead of the Camino? Two short morning etapes. It's better physically and mentally. Tomorrow? That is a question mark... ... Where someone is grossly overweight it is all over the body. Fat fingers: clogged arteries. As I finish a second Garantxa I consider that tomorrow must be ...

Woken with a start in the wee hours: some consistent explosion - at first I thought someone was trying to break into the Alberg, then I assumed it was an intermittent firework, but on leaving it became clear it was crow scarers on the Delta. The forecast for today is playing with my mind: 33°C, but I am in the usual position drinking a second coffee before I consider departing earlier than expected. I could hang on until 8... But I've got to cling to the edge of the hope I can manage the distance without heat stroke. Started my day packing away the stuff I'd washed, folding clothes and repacking the sleeping bag I slept on: it was too warm for being in it: sod the mosquito risk. Walking up to the bridge which crosses the Ebro, the original one from 1921. There is little that a coffee, a patisserie and a glass of orange juice can't fix. Now in the usual place to get ready to depart once more! I've discovered I am layered in bites. And I was clearly sat below ...

Just managed to zone out from 4 until 5. Then hand washed some items. I've a fresh t-shirt on but, like the foods trays on the Death Star, it's wet - nothing worked that well on that monstrosity, including security, so would you trust the dishwashers? Now it is dry. Took seconds as I walked up to where there seems to be a plethora ofcars (bar next to a Repsol), definitely put-putting mopeds and none locals: who sound Polish, Lithuanian, Ukrainian or Russian... How does one choose from their 'voices' as it sounds just like someone speaking backwards? I usually take it from their bodies: I would say Polish? But I dare not ask. There is a politely turned out olive tree on the rotonda. Amposta is a fairly multicultural town: well there is a large Arab contingent, and several slogans warning against Muslims (written by Nazi Christians I suppose with the accompanying anti-Nazi anthesis (anti-fascists are the same pigs))? Be liberal and stop all this bickering! ***...

End of day one! But it's only noon. I am in the Alberg de pelegrins d'Ampost a because at 11 I thought it's suddenly too hot for a long afternoon  towards Tortosa - 20 kilometres done since leaving els Muntells around 6:15am. The ex-president, wife and current president were very helpful, but the ex-president was giving me a headache: too much information for the future. I don't like to see too far ahead on the Camino. Each day should be as it comes - especially in this heat? I am here now. The bed is made. There isn't much to the kitchen (it's entire without condiments, coffee machine, etc) but I am the 7th Peregrino since they opened in October. They are trying to develop the way from here so I wish them success. There doesn't look like there is too much to concern myself with here in Amposta, but I couldn't walk any further. The ex-president tried to show me the way tomorrow but he led me into the sun! Minus the floppy hat I couldn't do it and I a...

What a beautiful vista? It might be flat as a skillet, without edges, and you could conceivably believe the world is flat here, but a sunrise and paddy field landscape to give me my first bite of el Camino. Arrived in Sant Jaume d'Enveja just around 7:30 after a hasty six kilometres from els Muntells. Time for esmorzar. Just on time for the children to go to school, being collected outside the iglesia and to count the mosquito bites I've just received in the swamp... These paddy fields are their evening and morning hunting grounds? I guess these are European/western mosquitoes because I was miles from people (and they looked differently attired). The hife bus arrives to take the chicos and chicas away, I take antihistamines and then head off for post coffee dispatch.