Walk Report:
Start > End: Logroños > Navarette
Distance: 14km/ 9.1mi
Elevation: 799 ascent, 465 descent
Conditions: 40s and 50s, rain socked in around mile 4, stayed with us until we got to town.
High Points: Great soup as part of a pilgrims meal. Seeing Basil at Decathlon.
Low Points: Nothing major to report today.
Three Word Summary: Trust the process.
The Day:
After the difficulty of some prior days, and the beauty of our first true rest day, I was a bit anxious going into the walk. I knew it would be a short day, and I’d gotten excellent sleep two nights in a row, not to mention we’d slept in this morning. Still, something about the pain in my ankles had been triggering, and I was apprehensive. So, a relatively short day was welcome, and it delivered a nice re entry into the routine.
Last night, we went to a wine tour with Basil, quickly becoming one of our favorite walking partners, and Kaylee, a Canadian from Vancouver Island walking at a slightly different speed from us. We happened to cross paths with her in a laundromat the first night in Logroños; our two night apartment rental was sumptuously appointed, including a washing machine, but sadly no dryer nor even a drying rack. So, in our Wednesday worst, we hobbled to a self service laundry. We both consider ourselves to be tech savvy, but were completely befuddled by the centralized digital controls. Kaylee stepped in, passing on knowledge that she herself had been given by a fellow pilgrim, and which we in turn offered to an American woman from Maryland. Strangely, our pupil mentioned that she was traveling with a group of 60 year olds, but that she was in her 50s, in a way that seemed like a cross between “I’m the cool aunt you can talk to about drugs and sex,” and “I’m the kid stuck with my parents on vacation.” Neither resonated with us, and we bid her adiue.
The winery tour was nice, if a bit pricy, but we learned about the history of Rioja (Logroños being the capitol of La Rioja), and went to the winery that put white Rioja on the map. We also had some incredible Spanish chorizo, some of the best I’ve ever eaten that went great with the red Rioja that most folks are familiar with.
After awakening at a luxurious 7:00am, we cleaned our apartment which we’d trashed in two short days, packed and headed out, stopping for a cafe con leche and deliciously-wet-in-the-middle tortilla. I’m going to experiment with doing luggage transfers for my CPAP machine, so in advance of that, I wanted to stop at Decathlon for a cheap, light bag that could fit everything but be stuffed into my main pack on days when I wasn’t feeling a need for a transfer.
We’d discussed this errand with Basil last night so it was funny to see his WhatsApp come through warning us that to incorporate Decathlon into our trip, we’d need to take a special route off the Camino or else have to backtrack. We’d learned this lesson the hard way, so once we sussed that we three were all in the Decathlon at the same time, we met up and walked the rest of the way together.
The terrain was pretty flat, relatively urban and urbane. A concrete path led into a gravel pathway through a small park, then past a lake. We encountered a vivacious chipmunk who was clearly expecting food, and catfish sucking up under a bridge that could have been child’s play to harvest. The rain started up halfway through the day, and we suited up - I stayed at moderate readiness level, electing to rely on the semi waterproofing of my trek pants.
This turned out to be a poor move, as my lower legs were pretty quickly soaked, along with my socks and shoes. Luckily it was a short day and by the time we reached town it had stopped raining. We left our bags at our Albergue, which was fortunately on the way into city center, then grabbed lunch with Basil. The restaurant, Iglesia, was on a shared google map Basil has been working off of and supposedly known for its paella, but we ended up with an filling and delicious Pilgrim’s meal. Soup with beans and kale, pork loin and chips (chicken breast for Ali), and an apple tart for 15 euro. Not bad. We wandered around the cathedral around which the town is built, which was one of the most beautiful I’ve ever been in. Then we headed to our Albergue, Ikigai. We showered, changed, did laundry. I shot my first interview for a long form video I’m working on, and we ended up having dinner at the hostel.
I keep wanting to find time to write some of the thoughts that are coming up, but the days feel short despite us really only walking, eating, doing laundry and sleeping.
Perhaps next rest day or on the long stretches of the meseta.
Buen Camino,
Danny
That map tracker is amazing.