I woke up in  an attic.

I spent a few minutes recalling the day before she I agreed to sleep on a mattress in an attic. This was a normal situation. I was a pilgrim. Sometimes pilgrims wake up in attics. Today was one of those standard attic wake up days.

I did my morning routine of dressing, packing and dealing with the 4 limbs of pain that were now my body.

I turned on my torch and started walking.

The town I had sleep in, Los Arcos, was one of the bigger towns on the Camino so there were many more pilgrims nearby. Today I was in for a pilgrim conga-line kind of morning.

At least it was a very friendly conga line along a very beautiful path.

The morning led through beautiful farmland and it was the most beautiful sunset I had seen so far on the Camino. I started to walk off the path to get some solitude to admire what I could tell was about to be a gorgeous daybreak. Many people called out to me to let me know I had strayed from the path and I reassured many stressed old Spanish ladies that I was insane sane and just having a ‘moment’.

(‘Moments’ are very acceptable on a pilgrimage – if you see someone hugging a tree on the Camino it’s not even questionable).

After my ‘moment’ and after a few awesome sunrise shots I continued on my way. It didn’t take long for the arid farmland path to turn into beautiful winery scenery.

At some point as I passed through a small town my stomach made the decision that it was breakfast time and I headed into the nearest restaurant for my favourite breakfast option… The popular Spanish tortilla (AKA giant omelette).

But there was something far more delicious than my omelette in this restaurant. The heatproof beautiful Slovenian man from the day before joined me for breakfast.

Here I was sharing a meal with a beautiful man in Spain. This somehow seemed slightly different to the whole ‘pilgrimage’ experience I had been picturing.

After we were refuelled we continued along the Camino actually having wonderful conversations. Eventually I said farewell to my beautiful heatproof friend when I stopped to slip slop slap (which probably only makes sense to my fellow Australians – don’t worry non-Australians it’s nothing dirty…)

I was eventually joined by the wonderful Polish Ana and her Canadian friend. We all had a Spanish street-side lunch together in the bigger town of Viana. It was one of those cozy streets where people and tables fill the roads and cars don’t even notice them when they decide to drive through.

I continued on alone that afternoon.

The weather would have convinced most of my fellow pilgrims to take the afternoon off and I trudged on alone through the Spanish heat, enjoying every sweaty moment of solitude.

I walked… And walked… And walked…

The only thing I can really recall being very interesting about that afternoon was hearing a local school bell that had been replaced with Taylor Swift’s “Shake it Off” blasting on the school’s loudspeakers…

I don’t know how and why but I walked really far that day. I ended up covering 43km and eventually I had reached the ‘crazy’ stage of the day before. (The combination of Spanish sun and exercise seemed to be having that effect on me regularly).

And once again I seemed to have another epiphany. Another beautiful kind man. But this time a local.

I don’t think I am over exaggerating when I say he was ‘Heavens Next Top Male Model’. This man was godly.

The wildly attractive man showed me to my room which was close to empty except for two older Australian women. I could tell they were Australian immediately because they both had ‘Katmandu’ branded bags. We just love that brand down under.

“How ridiculously attractive is that guy!??” I asked my roomies.

“WE KNOW!”

I wasn’t insane after all. Even the older Australian ladies were in shock. We giggled like teenagers about our mutual crush on our host for this evening.

I was completely exhausted after my ridiculously long walk but managed to drag myself into the two square where I had a picnic dinner and watched the locals enjoying their afternoon.

I must of had very sweet dreams that night after such a ‘hot’ day.