Month: August 2017

In case you happened to read Day 12 beforehand it has been completed as I now have power and internet so you might want to go back for another look.

DAY 13 Navarette to Najera

We left Navarette a little late. About 7:10 after filling our water bladders at the fountain. It seems every town or village has at least one public drinking water fountain. Always ornate and different from each other like sculptures. Usually a beast or demon of some sort with a water spigot in its mouth. That makes them fun to use. For splashing refreshingly cold water on your face, washing up, or filling a jug which some locals do I think for watering their flower boxes and other plantings.

We were some of the first on the road and walked for an hour by LED bulbs. The Way of St James was gentle and easy with cool rain sprinkles occasionally. It was cloudy all day making for cool walking. We walked through vineyards almost all day. They were lushly well watered and dark green, loaded with huge clusters of grapes.  Rarely did we see anyone working these huge vineyards but they seemed so neat and well maintained as to require much daily labor.

Did I ever mention the abundance of raspberrys along the Camino? Ever since we descended out of the clouds on that dangerous path over the Pyrenees we have walked trails that were usually bordered closely along the side with hedges. Often as not these hedges were raspberry bushes loaded with fat ripe berries. Perigrinos, us included, availed ourselves of the fattest and ripest whenever they took the notion.

We arrived in Najera exhausted but found an albergue easy enough that had a ‘double’. A double is sort of a private room with either a double bed or two single beds (which we prefer).  A double bed just isn’t big enough for two adults in our opinion. The main thing is the privacy and the cost isn’t much different than for two separate beds in a communal bunk house.

View more photos from week 2

Day 12 is Viana to Navarette. We are settled at an  albergue in Navarette after the longest walk ever for us.  24.7 km (15 1/4 miles).  We crossed over the boundary from the region of Navarre to La Rioja. Basque Country lies not far to the north. We have noticed a difference in spoken language in the last couple of villages. Less Basque and more Spanish. Sounds now like what we’ve been taught in our Spanish classes; Rosetta Stone and Babel.

Viana was a Wamego sized village with lots of shops, bars, fruit and food markets. The larger grocery stores are called supermercados. I guess Spanish doesn’t have a word for super. The reason I’m talking about Viana here is because the power kept going out like every five minutes or so. After an hour of this the wi-fi decided to not power back on nor did the wall outlets. So we couldn’t charge our iPhones or connect to wi-fi and we had no cell signal inside that building. Cell was weak all over Viana. Therefore no update to the website or photo uploads for El Olivio in Sansol to Viana.  Back to Day 12.

Leaving Viana it lightly sprinkled all morning.  We installed the rain jackets over our backpacks. We decided to press on to Logroño and decide there if we should go on to Navarette. The trail was through gentle terrain on good paths so walking was as easy as it gets for an old geezer and his Senora. The scenery was mostly unremarkable yet pleasant. My favorite pastime that morning was forced on me by Nancy who said I should try to come up with a better name than ‘sons of bitches’ for bicyclers on the path. These guys worked hard going uphill but on the downhill could reach speeds of 30 or more MPH. If you were walking downhill you couldn’t hear them coming behind you. Then Whoosh! Sometimes multiple whooshes. There’s always one lagging behind.  Just when you think it’s safe to sidestep a puddle then Whoosh!  Thus my name for them and for the life of me I can’t find a better name to appease Nancy.

At a cafe in Logroño we had tiny thick coffees and massive grilled cheese and ham sandwiches. They had difficult Spanish names but they were ham and cheese. If I had looked up the Spanish name on Google Translate it probably would have told me ham and cheese sandwiches. Very large. Grilled.

We decided to press on to Navarette because this city of 150,000 was urban noisy and rain was dissipating. It was a good choice. The Way was gentle, wide and smooth; maybe asphalt. Benches were placed at 100 meter intervals, between towering pillar-like Italian Cypress, for at least 3 kilometers. After that we were solidly back in the country but the roads stayed gentle. We could see Navarette long before we got there and our feet were hot from so many miles. We wanted to get there so we could cool off, dry out, and relax, but sometimes it seemed to be getting further away. But we did get there finally and entry and navigation through town was the usual maze of steep uphill cobblestone roads designed to turn visitors into meek quivering masses begging for relief at the first hospitalario (albergue). The Senora there delighted us with a third floor private room with good ventilation and a FAN. We had good internet connection there but were too tired to update photos or post anything.

View more photos from week 2

We had a really nice private room at El Olivio de Sansol and wanted to stay another day. They had already booked out all of their rooms so the next morning we were forced to move on to Viana about 12 km distant.

We had a pleasant breakfast of toast with butter and jam, and Nancy had cereal with leche (milk). The Bosch coffee contraption ground the beans each time you used it and could make anything from frappes to lattes and could probably lay a four lane highway at a mile a minute. What it didn’t know how to do is make a full pot of hot, black, American style coffee for which I would pay handsomely! The view over the valley was good from the kitchen balcony though.

Twelve kilometers to Viana didn’t sound like much but it was a path of unending steep ups and downs the whole way. The views were scenic from grand heights displaying large vineyards in the valleys and canyons below. All well watered, green, and healthy. The vines were heavily laden with grapes. Often they alternated rows of purplish blue grapes with white grapes. And there were large orchards of olive trees.  The olive trees gave off a pleasing spicy fragrance that filled the air.

We stopped for lunch at a confluence of various paths and roads. We were carrying bread, dried Spanish bacon, apples, and peaches,  so whipped up a pretty decent light meal. Also had a liter bottle of orange KAS which is FANTA without the extra syllable or cost.

We found an albergue quickly in Viana.  No frills like a communal supper or breakfast.  When we asked if a private room was available, so I could lay around in my underwear without people laughing, they showed us to a room with four bunk beds and said we could have the whole thing to ourselves. It was fun trying out all the different bunks before settling on our favorite spots. Ventilation was good since it had a full size door opening to a little balcony.  We found mass at a hugely ornamental cathedral two blocks away. In Spanish of course. It was short but nice and the priest asked all peregrinoes to step forward for a special blessing.

View more photos from week 2