Hi
@J Willhaus and
@Phil W,
I'm finally at Arres, holding down the fort with my co-hospi Vidal, from Bilbao. Your detailed information and answers to my questions were invaluable to getting prepared for this. I walked the CF from Pamplona for 11 days prior to this, and made it a point to stay in donativos and municipal when possible, offering my hospitalero services. They were always gracefully accepted but they generally didn't give me much to do. Except Granon, where they had 43 Peregrinos that night, and put me to work checking in and helping prep dinner. Awesome place.
The guys we replaced here graciously stuck around the whole day, and even prepared dinner for us and the 7 Peregrinos we had that day.
Vidal is a great guy and amazing cook, but unfortunately does not speak any English, and my Spanish is rudimentary at best. It's Google Translate all the way. I'm originally Dutch so speak a few languages, but no Spanish. Oh well, we'll figure it out. So far we've agreed that he handles the Spanish guests and I handle the rest.
We've made our first shopping run to Jaca, and hiked around a bit, and it's indeed gorgeous here. The weather is perfect (for now) so all is good. Still lots of flies, but probably less than you had in summer.
I'll try to post about my experience here, if anyone is interested.
Thanks again,
Steven