Puente la Reine to Estella

So the pilgrim hostels are increasingly beginning to look like war hospitals. The walking wounded are everywhere you look and I'm no exception.

At the end of every day, it's traditional for us all to compare battle wounds and the only consolation for your own injury is seeing somebody else limping down the stairs - there's definitely some comfort in knowing it's not just you.

Pills, foot tape, tiger balm etc are being sent from bunk to bunk on an hourly basis while those who've done the Camino before promise everyone it'll get better. (We'll see).

Today I clocked up another 16 miles - I started with a dodgy left knee, then half way through this disappeared and like magic, my right thigh started playing up again, along with my middle right toe.

I'm finding that I hit my wall each day around 13 miles. Today this coincided with me nipping into a leisure centre to use the loo. I had to walk through the bar which was filled with men on some kind of sporting jaunt. As I walked by, I heard one (in Spanish) say: "She's on Camino, look how tired she looks."

Every woman loves to hear how tired she looks, obviously.

The toilet was a large disabled loo with a timer light. When the lights went off, I honestly considered staying in there and getting my head down for an hour (I had a dreadful sleep last night).

When I looked in the mirror, I did see a tired face, but also a determined one.

As I walked back through the bar, a crowd of men parted for me. As one man pulled his son out of the way, I heard him say to his boy (in English): "Isn't she beautiful?"

When I got outside I burst into tears! I certainly didn't feel beautiful (I'd been sitting in a muddy ditch half an hour earlier and was covered in dirt), but on reflection, I think there is something beautiful in feeling like death and continuing to plod on just to prove to yourself that you can.

That's what's keeping us all going I think; bloody mindedness and a shipping container's worth of Ibroprofen.