SabineP said:
Seems you had a lovely nan!
I just posted this because the Aragones can get quite lonely and I for one would not like to walk under those weather circumstances. Then again I'm a chicken...;-)
It is quite amazing to think about snow a few weeks later when I walked in the most searing heat, particularly on 20th and 21st September - I am sure the temperature must have been between 35 and 40 degrees. There were only some 6 pilgrims each day, so it was a very isolated and remote route, and they were all young guys who left me for dust after the first 5 kms. I was ill-prepared because I had not realised that there was no where to buy anything along the way, nor were there any fuentas, and on that very long day between Arres and Ruesta I got into a very potentially serious situation as I had not taken any food with me because I thought I could buy something along the way, and I ran out of water with another 10 kms to go - plus I had broken my sunglasses, and lost my cap along the way. I was on the point of dehydration and stopped every 10 minutes just to allow my body to cool down. To my great relief, I caught up with a French pilgrim and told him of my plight - ie that I had no food and no water. His response was that he had enough provisions for 2 days in his pack, including water, chocolate, sardines, biscuits, cheese etc, but he could not stop to talk to me as he was looking for a suitable place to stop so he could 'put fuel in his body'. With that, he wished me a cordial goodbye as he had just seen a place to stop and eat his food. I can laugh about it now, but at that time when I was in a fairly desperate place, his unwillingness to share or to help a fellow pilgrim in trouble was quite breathtakingly uncaring.
The scenery of the Camino Aragones is stunning, and I would love to walk it again some time, but never again on my own. It is not a case of being 'chicken' - just being sensible.