Day 9: Logroño to Najera

Long stage again today. About 30km. Set off early but got a little bit lost coming out of the city and then I wasted a lot of our time looking for a bathroom when we came out of the city and into one of the amenity parks... Anyway, we got over it and we were in good form. It felt like we were getting into it today. We decided a few days ago to turn off all the phones and watches because we used to be trying to time our breaks, or try and calculate how fast we were travelling. After what felt like a good few kms in we saw a village and we decided to stop for coffee but the next thing, the yellow arrows - that we are following all through the Camino, pointed a different so we followed on, as per usual and ages later arrived at a very similar looking village to the one that had seemed very close earlier. One of our Spanish buddies informed us that yes, it was the same village and the Camino, just for fun, had taken us an extra 4kms out of our way to get there. But in our now Zen-like state, we accepted this fact and with our feet burning, we went in to get a coke. We walked on after our pitstop with the Spanaird, and got the complete history of Spain, Franco and the Basque country (from the point of view of a Madrileño - person who lives in Madrid) for about 10 km and it was really interesting because up to this point, we had been walking through the Basque Country (which is a region in Spain that wants to be independent and they had their own type of IRA called ETA but there is now a ceasefire) and had seen all the flags, and the banners written in Euskera and the graffiti on the pilgrim path with "Freedom for the Basque" and "Pilgrim (bit Wild West, like), You are in the Basque Country." It is still quite polemic here, I didn´t really that it was still so contraversial. But then, Franco only died in the 70s and before that they had a dictatorship for 40 years... Very interesting. We took a little break then and the last 2km into the city were AWFUL. I seriously thought we were getting sunstroke! I was there with my cap on, and a scarf draped over it and Maura was going around with my fleece draped over her - just anything to avoid our skin being touched by the sun!! Made it eventually...drunk on sunshine...

Day 8: Torres del Rio to Logroño

We actually managed to get our hands on some toast this morning with the coffee before heading out. Toast! Imagine. It is the small things that make you happy on this trip. It was quite a pleasant walk today and short, so we got into Logroño at about 12. We stayed with the padres in the Parrochial house and we were lucky we got there early as they only had 23 beds and the others that came after had to sleep Japanese style on little mattresses on the ground. There is a famous street for tapas in Logroño so we headed out there with a couple of others and we had a great afternoon, popping around from tapas bar to tapas bar. You eat one, have a little beer (called a "corto" which is about half a half pint) and move on to the next place. It was nice to get some proper Spanishy type food other than the peregrino meals. We had good craic and balmed out in the square then with a few more. I went and got my Spanish phone fixed then and it was dinner back with the padres at half 8. There was about 35 of us, all together and it was really lovely. Spanish, Italian, Hungarian, German, English, whatever. You name it, we had it. After dinner then we went down to the church and had evening prayer. There were leaflets in a couple of different languages and Maura and I took the Spanish one, just so we could follow along, as we presumed it would all be in Spanish. As it turns out, each part of the prayers would be said in a different language and I don´t know what it was but in the middle of it I just started welling up a bit... I don´t know what happened me... Thinking about the reasons, the different people in my life, the distance, us all on this together, being in the church at that hour, empty and so peaceful... I wasn´t expecting that...

Anyway, bit of drama later on that evening with people not turning off the light early enough (people need their sleep on this thing!!) but it was grand and the padres had the breakfast all laid out for us the next morning again at 5.

Day 7: Estella a Torres del Rio

Just as we were about to leave this morning, we heard a bell clanging outside the albergue door and a group of singers, with 4 guitars and an accordian launched into song at 6 a.m. It was hilarious! Thank God we were up, otherwise we would have been like the other people out on their balconies in their pjs, wondering what the hell was going on! It was the feast of Santiago during the week, and it was being celebrated as it was Sunday, so this group was going through the streets stopping every couple of hundred metres to sing a verse of their hymn. We could hear them all the way up out of the city. We soon came to the famous wine font, but it was only about twenty past 6 and when I went over to try it out, nothing happened. Apparently, it only works from 8 to 8. Might have been just as well :) It was a hard day today, and it was Maura´s turn for the meltdown. It was ridiculously hot and we had a long trek through about 15 kilometers of farmland; no villages, no trees, no fuentes (places to fill up on water) or no shade. We were just looking at the winding road ahead and the stacks of hay bails and the fields of squat little olive trees. We met a guy who was doing the Camino to mark his 50th birthday. He started talking to us about reasons why we are here - a lot of people ask that. That didn´t help Maura´s mood as she, like me three days in, was questioning herself - what exactly WERE we doing here?! A long, long, long while later, we hit the town - Los Arcos. But it was horrible. It looked a bit like the set of a dodgy western. We had lunch there anyway, we had packed the chorizo and the pan, the nectarines and the apples so we were happy enough but we decided to continue on. But we left at the worst time of day and we were actually delirious with the heat by the time we hit the next town. The town after that, Torres del Rio was supposedly only 1km away but we were knackered, and I had a serious heat rash going on on the back of my legs - I didn´t know if it was that or if I had actually burned and it was blistering (lovely, I know but it turns out it was just a heat rash). So we stopped there, in Sansol, in the manliest bar I think I have ever been in. But old-Spanish-man manly. You could imagine all the Señores in there, playing cards at the little square tables and drinking away. Anyway, it was run by a guy who seemed to be half twisted himself, but told us that Torres was only 5 mins away. We decided to head on, stretched ourselves, but more cream on (because we weren´t sure we could trust the word of this bartender), put on a big show of getting ready and it turns out it really was 5 minutes away. Down the hill and across the road.

Day 6: Puente de la Reina to Estella

We woke a little late this morning after the craic (and the vino) last night but we were still on the road for quarter to 7. The party was still going strong in town when we stopped in for a take away cafe con leche. We are living for the coffee stops in the morning. It is actual mental. I don´t know if it´s a placebo effect or what but it really does wonders for the humour in the morning. We took it fairly slowly today and we met up with all the people who we thought we were miles ahead of; the Portugese cyclists, the two Nihon-jin, the Spanairds and the guy from Limerick. We really tore into the first week and to be honest, we are suffering a bit. We thought we were taking it easy but we weren´t really. It doesn´t matter how fast or slow you go, everyone gets there eventually. For us the early morning really is the best time to walk though, it is my favourite anyway. The dewfall, the quiet roads and the sunrise. It´s different everyday. Plus you get in before the heat really starts taking its toll and zapping you completely. It was mild today though, even a bit overcast and cloudy. We were delighted! Haha. People are really suffering with blisters here but thankfully we aren´t at all, there are a lot of needle and thread surgeries going on... Thank you Chris and my 17 euro socks!! Estalla is a lovely little town, very old, hilly, with churches that look like they are growing out of the rocks. Walking through town you get the sensation that people have been walking though it for centuries... For some reason, it gave me a sense of how old the Camino is and that we a part of the many, many people that have passed though it. Cooking in the hostel tonight and heading to bed early. Wrecked. It was really hot today.

Day 5: Cizur Menor a Puente de la Reina

Yesterday I had a bit of a meltdown but today was my favourite day so far! Started off a bit rough, Marua didn´t get much sleep because there was a snorer beside her but the first two hours of this morning´s walk were gorgeous. We went through a wood in the dark with our headlamps and it was up into the hills, up a little path surrounded by field of cut hay or corn or something. We made it a good bit up the hill before sunrise, so we sat down in the road and watched the day coming in over Pamplona. It was spectacular, not a sinner on the road and the birds singing. Today´s walk was supposed to be tough, going up another fairly substanstial hill but after the trauma of that first day up the Pryrenees at St. Jean, nothing seems that bad :) There was a row of wind turbines going across the top of the hills and we reached the top of our particular one (named Alto de Perdon) at about 8 a.m. We took a break at the monument up there and had our usual nectarine and babybel cheese, which we seem to be living on...! A pair of French women that had been in our hostel the night before arrived not long after us and in my attempts to offer to take a picture of them at the monument, I ended up headbutting one of them as she was trying to show me which button to press! So that kept Maura entertained all the way down :) That night we stayed in Puente de la Reina and managed to swing a room with 6 bunks (all girls so not much snoring!!). There was a local festival on in the town that evening so all the locals were going around dressed completely in white with red hankerchiefs. Called into the chuch, this big beautiful Gothic sandstone thing with a huge golden alter and afterwards Maura and I stumbled into the middle of this parade thing so I decided to take a video. There were dolls and people dressed up and in the middle of my video these two characters decide to come up and beat us with this foam contraptions which is apparently tradition (?!) so the video is just me screaming and none of the parade! We went to get some fruit and the Señora in the shop told us that there would be a running of the bulls later on that evening so we were delighted. Sure, when would we ever been in such a little town and able to see something like that again. We went back to the hostel and then out of nowhere there was an almerciful storm, , thunder and lightening, rain, wind and huge hailstones! There was talk of the bull running being suspended but it went ahead and we went back to the centre of town to have a look. There were barriers up around the square and they had an area fenced off for the bulls. The shops and restaurants had gates up, the bars big enough for a person to fit through, but not a bull, just in case one of the runners had to duck out of the way. So we were there, 5 of us, and the music was blaring from the little stage they had set up, this real dramatic Spanish music, with lots of trumpeting and drums so we were getting quite into the whole thing, gettting ready to see the bulls and next things a roar went up and about 30 seconds later four, what looked like CALVES, skidded over the cobbles into the main pen. Bulls my eye!! Ah no, they weren´t that small and they had the horns and all but seriously, after that built up! We went into one of the restaurants then and had dinner, out of 5, 4 of us spoke English but we had dinner in Spanish, which was lovely. We had to stay inside then as they let the bulls and the runners out roaming the streets for an hour! Afterwards, there was a little street party and it was a bit like Timoleague festival :) Great craic. They even played a bit of Irish music. It was crazy - here we were, in this tiny town in the middle of nowhere in Spain, dancing to trad tunes out in the square!! Great night but in fairness, like the hermits we seem to be at the moment, we were back and in bed for half 10!

Day 4: Larrasoña to Cizur Menor

Maura woke me up at 5 this morning, I was glued to the bed didn´t know what was going on but I rolled out of bed anway thinking "Oh God, again? Do we really have to go walking again? For 3 and a half weeks more?" and my day pretty much continued along the same vein! We went walking with Helia, our French Canadian friend and most of the morning was through the woods. I was knackered but the girls were in good form. We stopped for a cafe con leche and on the way met Sonia and the four of us walked on to Pamplona, the city famous for the running of the bulls. We left the girls, who wanted to head on, so we did a bit of exploring, ate bad paella but delicious dulce de leche ice-cream, I bought a €20 phone and we got shampoo, which was very exciting since we had been washing our hair with shower gel for since we arrived. Better than another girl we met though, who was using the soap she used to wash clothes! Not overly impressed with Pamplona (probably because of the bad paella) we decided to walk on the Cizur Menor, a little town about 2km away. It was along the road but there were fields of sunflowers either side so it was quite nice. We stayed in a little hostel run by the Order of Malta and then we heard there was a public pool in the town so we bolted over there and spent the evening stretched out on the grass with a million Spanish kids and their mammies and daddies. It was nice to be in the middle of them though. Maura´s "pecas" (freckles) are getting a lot of attention, it is pretty funny though :) We are just SO white compared to everyone else. We went for our peregrino meal after that and hit a little thunder and lightening storm on the way back so we ran (painfully) for home!