Day 9 – El Camino – Logroño to Nájera

Logroño to Nájera, I woke up feeling slightly dusty, after the drinking sesh the previous evening. But I still managed to get out of bed around 6h15.

I decided that I would walk in thongs today, as the boots were not comfortable and would exacerbate my swollen ankle. Anyhow, I had much more freedom and movement with thongs.

Aaron’s feet had pus and blood and he caught the bus to the next destination. I think it is best to rest his feet than to make it worse.

I started the walk with a killer pace! With my ankle free to articulate normally I could walk like normally, too.

We dropped into a cafe to get a croissant and coffee. Then resumed the route to leave the city. The city limits were really far from where we were staying in the centre, it must have taken about an hour or six kilometers before we were outside the city.

We passed many pilgrims, so many. With our killer pace we cleared twelve kilometers in the first two hours. We arrived at Navarette around 9h30 and here I had a tortilla and can of coke. I guess my body was low on sugar to crave that.

Whenever we stop, even for a moment, the chills begin to set in. This was true after our short break, as the wind picked up and the cold came in. I had my windcheater jacket on and the hood up, it was so cold.

We continued another right kilometers to Ventosa, there we ate lunch. I had a pork chop sandwich with cheese. Yummy! It only cost 3€50.

Resuming the walk we passed a Bodega with a sign out the front with a hole where you could put your face. We took photos here to mark our 182km of the trek. We were in so much pain already and this was a fun distraction that helped us to regain our peaches (our motivation).

We decided that it might be a good idea to play music. Sam had portable speakers in her bag and I plugged in my iPhone. We listened to my playlist for Lyon (which included some faves from high school).

This gave me my peaches. To explain ‘peaches’ a little more, in French you can ask ‘T’as la peche?’ which means ‘Are you good?’. We use this now as a way to ask each other if we are ok. ‘Got your peaches?’

We sang along to One Direction and that gave Matt a lot of peaches. I had Shania Twain and that gave Sam her peaches.

Once we finally arrived into town, we sat and had a beer at a bar. The barman brought out tapas for free, sooo good.

Aaron came to collect us and take us to the hostel he booked us into. It’s a really nice hostel, it’s like someone’s home transformed into an albergue.

I bought a can of tinned food for dinner. It was a local dish, mostly tripe. Ha!

Here is a photo of a map that the hostel keeps, they ask the pilgrims to drop a pin from where they are from.