After a great nights sleep in a bed with real sheets and not a sleeping bag, we awoke early at 5am. None of us wanted to get up. The desire to lay in such a comfortable bed was overwhelming!
During the night, we awoke many times briefly to the sounds of loud, joyous hollering. Spain had inducted a new king, and the people of Spain were very excited! They partied all night!
When we finally dragged ourselves out of the hotel at 6:15, we walked trough Logrono and surveyed the remnants of the night before. Wine and vodka bottles lay throughout the streets, and a hard core partier still intoxicated, urinated on the street while singing a song to us about the camino.
Sweet. 😉
Exiting the town, we walked for about 8km through a beautiful park. The locals like to take their morning walks through there and we were greeted with many, “BUEN CAMINO’S!!”
On our way to Ventosa, we met a lady named Christine. She is from Washington state. She was sitting alone on the side of the trail in obvious distress. We stopped to talk with her and we saw her blisters. She had arrived a few days previous, started in Pamplona and was having problems with swollen feet. Her shoes had become to tight from the swelling, had caused terrible blistering and she was forced to buy new sandal like runners 1.5 sizes larger than normal. We chatted for awhile and continued on after she assured us that she would be okay.
As we walked, a pilgrim appeared beside us with a video camera. He shoved it in our faces asking questions as we walked. “You are canadian, yes?” “You are walking to Compestella?” “Yes?” “You are walking to Santiago?” We answered his questions with smiles and he was off as quickly as he appeared.
We stopped in Navarette for a cold drink. While we drank our iced tea, a group of (Italian?) men beside us tried to make conversation. We smiled and said “English”, and they used a few brief words they knew. One was very friendly and laughed and smiled a lot. I’m 30% sure that he was Robert De Niro. Cool!
While we sat there, Christine arrived. She had met a friend named Dayna. We talked with them for about 15 minutes. They had both decided to stay in Navarette. Christine because of her feet, Dayna – unsure why. Christine loves to talk. She told us about a catholic man she had walked with who was reciting the rosary, about her views on religion, about how amazed she was that Karis was walking, and about her clothing choices. When we stated that we had to move on, her and Dayna went into the nearest albergue.
On our way out of Navarette, we saw a huge old church. We stopped to admire it from the outside, and as we started to walk away, a couple emerged from inside and told us that we must go in to see. We did. Wow. We will definitely be going into more churches. I have never seen a church so beautiful. The pictures will not do it justice at all. I could have stayed there for hours just sitting and admiring the work that went into building it. So impressive!
The final 10 km today were hot, but nearly flat. Our feet managed to hold up well. We all still had sore feet, but nothing excruciating like 2 days ago. The rest day really helped. So did starting so early!
We are spending the night at an albergue in Ventosa and it’s beautiful 🙂 washer and dryer, backyard with patios, a small grocery store and nice people!
We are sharing a room with the two Australian girls whom we met our first night back in Saint Jean Pied de Port named Claire and Sarah (Sarah is suffering from HORRIFIC blisters and is needing to bus a lot of the way while Claire walks) and two friends named Maria and Junia from the states who happened to be in the “grandmas house” albergue two days ago and witnessed my meltdown. Lovely. 😉