No Pain in Spain no Gain – Caspe to Escatron

It was a good hotel in Caspe last night for £20 each. Nice place, great meal, decent beer. The son of the owner had lived in Liverpool so he spoke good English. Unlike the people from Liverpool. Oh, sorry Cheggers. Glad you had a good time in New York. Ain’t retirement great?

This morning we had another decent fried egg on toast breakfast. Coffee and orange juice. Perfect. It had been well below freezing overnight and down in the Ebro valley the fog was thick and cold. 

We set off at around 10.30, no rush whilst it was freezing, and today we were aiming for Escatron around 16 miles up the valley. The fog slowly cleared at around 1pm.

It was a road walk today. No diversion just heading straight forward over undulating plains to the south of the (quite narrow) Ebro valley proper. The tarmac kills your feet. Well, my feet as well. And Gary’s feet. I swapped my boots for Salomon walking trainers today, which are great but give some impact from the road through to the sole of the foot. Gazza was going through the same, plus a slight Achilles problem. The road went straight and then over a tributary of the Ebro.

The view from over the bridge back to Chipranes, which we by-passed, was excellent.

Even at 2pm the temperature frosted our breath, but then the plain warmed up and we peeled off gloves, hats, scarves and top coats. It’s not great walking on the road but the views are still worth a look, left and right.

But with each mile the pain grew more. We’re getting fitter but our feet and legs are feeling the pain of roadwalking. Next time we’ll just find a cross-country footpath! We got closer to Escatron as the sun was slightly slipping down, highlighting the far side of the Ebro valley.

We made it by 5.20pm and found a bar on the outskirts whilst the sun was still on the veranda for a while. It was great to rest painful and blistered feet. 

The Pension we were staying at was closed when we arrived and didn’t respond to phone calls. We were envisioning sharing my emergency bivouac when a young woman came down the street with her grandma, and spotting our plight she got on her phone. Within three minutes the owner arrived and let us in! 

We’re down by the river, eating dinner and enjoying a rest. We’re going for broke and aiming to cut the walking by a day. We’re limping but we can do it; and have a full day and half in Zaragoza. We did 17 miles today, 127 over all, 47 to go.

Night night. Love you.