Today is a short 3.6 mile walk. I’ll rest, recuperate from yesterday, and prepare for a strenuous climb tomorrow. I walk through a lovely field of sunflowers and reach my destination before noon.

Agnes from Poland joins me for lunch. At the next table a man from Brazil tells us that he was in a lot of pain yesterday. He demonstrates how he walked – slowly shifting leg to leg, sideways, barely moving forward. I recognize that! It’s the way I start out in the mornings. Then a young man from France gets up from another table to go inside. He walks the same way. We’re all in stitches as we laugh in solidarity and knowing: It’s the Pilgrim’s Walk!