Well I was up and at it a little later this morning leaving at seven because it was sunday. Immediately I found a Danish fella totally lost, camino walkers are really easy to spot. I told him I was on my way out of town having checked it out on my day off finding it was an extension of the same walkers and joggers path that brought me into the city. Yes, that is what you do on your time off, walk around checking out the town but without the tryanny of the backpack which I have come to put up there with the tiller and hand steering on a boat.Also no shoes you get to wear your sandals. I walked with him gossiping about other camino walkers we knew and talking books till Navarrete where I met the French Basque girls I knew from Cirauqui, who were picking pears off a trail tree and invited me to stop and share after which I walked into the town where the square resembled a war zone from the fiesta celebrations the night before. In fact gangs of youth were still prowling around with open liquor making a nusiance of themselves. Lucky for me the panderia was open and I managed to score a baugette and some fresh fruit as well as a expresso so things were good. Najera my next pitstop 30 klicks from Logrono with still seventeen to go. I found my way out of town and again the trail was fairly flat all through the vineyards. At the hamlet of Ventosa I stopped and had a cold beer grabbing a cold litre of water for the walk. At noon I came to the outskirts of Najera entering first through the industrial suburb always a lonely place on a sunday and then through the newer brick tenement buildings which gave off a totally different vibe than the other towns and their stone buildings. I crossed the river Najerilla into the older section of town hung a left and ended up at the municipal Albergue which was still very empty managing to get a solo bunk at the end of a row. The cost was donative and the friendly hospitalero seemed to be in some kind of rapture with a lot of religous music playing. I will give him this though I later watched him doctor several people´s feet all of which were a mess and he didn´t blink once showing what I considered incredible fortitude and I am certain that all those who he attended couldn´t thank him enough. There didn´t seem to be any type of pilgims dinner on offer in town so I hit a tapas bar had a couple of beers to wash them down with and hit the sack. Outside one of the hospitaleros was holding a hootenany with all the Italians most of who were finishing up their two week vacation stint. Each year they come and do a different section keeping their credencial till they finish and getting their compostela when finally geting to Santiago. In fact many European nationalities do some version of this. After about the sixth version of Micheal Row the Boat Ashore from outside which were getting louder with each version I surrendered to the Ipod and drifted off listening to Nick Drake. to be continued |
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