Day 5 Lorca

View of Lorca
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Okay, there really are a lot of photos, but Spanish internet cafes don´t all have usb connections.  (Although given my Pamplona experience, maybe I shouldn´t be trusted uploading photos.)

The Lorca story...

One, Two, Three times in Lorca!

We arrived at Lorca after a full day´s uphill walk from Obanos, and left Lorca early the next morning (the 5th).  After about 1 1/2 kilometers, we got to a tricky spot and I realized I didn´t have my trekking poles.... correction, my friend Jayne´s trekking poles.  She climbed Kilimanjaro with them, so I couldn´t leave them behind, even though she hasn´t once commented on my blog.

Oh, no, where are my poles?
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So I had to trudge back to Lorca.  Pierre offered to go back with me, so we reached Lorca the second time about an hour after leaving it.  Got the poles, and headed on toward Estella, the next "big" town.  We planned to go beyond Estella, but that was stage 1 for the day.  Halfway there, I decided to photograph a nice church in Villatuerta - I bet that is not on any map of Spain, it´s that small.  At the church, as with every church so far, there was a nice senora who was "in charge" of letting you see the church.

Last time in Lorca
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I may have mentioned that Pierre is from California and thus speaks great Spanish.  So, Senora wows us with the long-hidden frescoes, the statue of the Virgin which had been uncovered in renovation, etc.  Pierre is an architecture student, and knows a lot about old cathedrals.  So he could follow the senora and translate the important parts for me.

At the end, I noticed she had a "sello" - a rubber stamp.  It is a custom with Camino pilgrims that we have our Camino Passport stamped in every town.  So I asked her to stamp our Pilgrim Passports.  Whereupon, Pierre exclaims that he has forgotten his Pilgrim Passport back in -- yes, in Lorca!

We had the phone number for Jose in Lorca, so phoned him to say we would return yet again.  But no buses ran from the middle of nowhere (Villatuerta) and we had gone too far from Lorca to walk back, so we continued on to Estella.  We found its bus station, and took a bus back.  Amazingly, what distance had taken us half the day to walk was accomplished by bus in about 10 minutes.  So there we were - One, Two, Three times in Lorca!

We decided to take a bus on to Los Arcos, where we might have walked had we not spent so much time going to and from Lorca.  While waiting at Jose´s for the bus, in walks Franzi from Saltzburg, who had crossed the Pyrenees with me in the rain and mud.

So... there was a reason we had to be back in Lorca at that moment.  Another Camino Angel moment.