Pilgrims

Camino. Chapter 10

This is my serialized story of walking the Camino de Santiago across Northern Spain with my sister-in-law. If you’d like to start at the beginning of our journey, click here.

Day 8. We wake and leave the Pension hostel at 6:30 AM. Having said our early morning prayers and with our headlamps now on, we begin our walk to Logrono, the second largest city so far on our pilgrimage (155,000 people versus 200,000 people in Pamplona). It feels strange to be hiking out of such a small, rural town (Las Arcos) and passing endless agricultural fields, knowing that in 17 miles we will be in the bustling city of Logrono.

Several miles into our walk Marlene’s headlamp dies out and I give her mine to lead the way. We decide she is probably better than me at keeping the lamp focused on the road. She says I turn my head too much - my eyes have a tendency to wander. I tell her she is so tiny, I would have to put the headlamp on my belt to be of help to her. Nonetheless, we find we walk faster with Marlene carrying the light.

I am not a great talker and at times I think Marlene misses a good conversation. Today she walks with the various pilgrims we encounter while I walk ahead. This pattern is easy to get into. Typically, she likes solitude in the first hour to say her rosary, and I am happy to use this desire on her part to get some separation. I don’t need a reason for my solitude, I simply like walking alone. When I get far enough ahead, such as where I no longer see Marlene behind me, I have learned after our first week to wait.

Throughout the morning, I find Marlene talking to various pilgrims along the way. Andre, a young man who comes up on us, turns out to be from Italy and speaks a touch of English. When Marlene asks him why he is walking the Camino, he tells her he lives in a small, mountainous town in the Northern part of the country. He got off his couch one day and informed his roommates, friends, and family he was leaving to walk the Camino. Now, two weeks later, here he is. He soon says goodbye to us to walk with two young men who pass us by. The one is hiking in sandals and I find this extraordinary. Marlene says she hopes we encounter Andre again. On another occasion, I find Marlene walking with a Swedish couple who, she later tells me, are retirees named Maria and Pao. On a third occasion, she is walking with Karol (Karl) a school teacher from Poland.

What the hell, I think as I walk alone, I haven’t met a soul all day.

We pass the Iglesia de Santo Sepulcro in Torres del Rio about five miles into today’s walk and find it closed. Our guidebooks say its origins are unknown, but it is said to be connected with the Knights Templar, a Catholic military order from the 10th Century. We read in our guidebooks the structure has many Muslim features throughout. I can’t help but wonder how hard it was for the Knights Templar to remove the Muslims from this region of Spain. Muslim had ruled the Iberian Peninsula for 800 years.

By late morning, the wind and rain pushes against us in what turns into a blustery, spritzy day. Walking in these conditions, though, feels wonderful after so many hot and dry days, so we don’t stop to cover our backpacks or put on our rain-gear.

My blister situation seems to be on the mend, but my right heel is starting to hurt. I worry that my old plantar fasciitis is flaring up. Twice I have had plantar fasciitis in this heel over the past decade - in my early sixties, which ended my long distance running and in May two years ago trying to walk fifty miles a week. Both times it took more than a year to recover. I pray that my hiking of twelve or so miles a day, doesn’t knock me off the Camino. Of all things, praying for my foot, while walking on a spiritual pilgrimage, seems crazy - I mean, how petty is that?

Six-and-a-half miles later, Viana, the last town before Logrono, comes across as a much larger city than we expected. With a population of only 4,300 people, we are surprised with how nice of a town it is. Walking down the main street we encounter our first hiking store and I insist we stop and look inside. I love hiking stores and even though I want to buy new poles, I hold off because I am sore, wet and hungry, and I don’t want to deal with this in the middle of our walk.

Further down the street we encounter a beautiful church (the Iglesia de Santa Maria de La Asunción) and, after spending a long time drying off and taking pictures (me) and praying (Marlene), we dip behind a pillar to change our socks - a perfect reason to visit any church. Shortly thereafter, we stop at a busy, cosmopolitan cafe for lunch and end up apologizing to customers sitting next to us for taking up so much space with our backpacks. But after a wonderful salad (Marlene) along with grilled ham and cheese sandwiches and two espressos (me), we are glad we stopped. Heading out of town, we make a quick visit to explore the ruins of another church, the Iglesia de San Pedro, and soon, we’re off to our last destination, Logrono.

In five miles we are on the outskirts of Logrono and with one step ahead leave the region of Navarra and enter the smaller, independent region of Rioja, known for its vineyards and wineries. Shortly thereafter, we are surprised with Logrono’s many modern buildings and, for that matter, the overall size of the city. With 150,000 people, though, we should have expected this. But, as a result, we struggle to find our hostel, and finally, after 30 minutes or so wandering around with our guide books, asking various people in our limited Spanish, and searching for street signs, we open the Google maps app on Marlene’s phone, and figure it out.

Marlene has a thirty-day cellular, international phone plan, but I rely entirely on the internet. We are trying not to use cellular at all, but, so far, we have needed it on occasion to find our hostels. In making reservations five days in advance, turning on cellular, too, has been an option, as a supplement to booking.com on the internet. Our number one criteria for booking hostels ahead on our route is internet service, then, a private room with single beds, and finally, a private bathroom. Unfortunately, it hasn’t always worked out that way.

In Logrono, though, our hostel turns out to be a chic European hotel, which meets all three of our requirements and then some. Arriving in mid-afternoon, our typical time so far, we take the first hour to lie on the exquisite beds, enjoying our good fortune, get hot showers, and send our clothes out to be washed and dried. Finally, we decide to use what time is left of the day to explore the city.

The clerk at the front desk speaks limited English but tells us of a wonderful art museum nearby, the Museo de la Rioja, so we’re off to the museum and, hopefully, an early dinner afterward. Climbing the three floors of the museum is almost more than I can take after walking 17 miles of twists and turns, hills and bridges with one hiking pole, but the historical paintings and the centuries old pottery and religious relics are worth the hundreds of additional steps added to our day.

We find a nice restaurant on a street near the hotel that offers vegan options and enjoy a bottle of red wine to celebrate sitting in the capital of Spain’s most famous wine region. As we prepare to leave, we spot Leah - from Pamplona and our first day’s hike - outside our restaurant, reading the menu in the window. Soon she is sitting with us and we take time to be with her as she eats. Her husband, Jim, has flown back to Houston, and she is now walking on her own until her sister joins her in two weeks. She seems very content with how things are working out and is booking her reservations, like a true Pilgrim, as she goes along.

Marlene says she would be willing to try this: finding an accommodation when we reach our destination each day, but I am less interested. After a long walk, I want to know in advance where I am staying. This, then, requires that we do our homework each night to determine where we want to stop five days in advance and what hostel meets our needs. Our guide books help with this, of course, as does booking.com, offering many hostel choices, and that makes our job easier. Leah, though, is more laissez faire and says she is not worried, God will provide.

We wish Leah well after dinner and hope we see her again. Marlene and Leah exchange phone numbers and promise to text each other along the way.

Lying in our beds that night with clean clothes packed in our backpacks, we recognize what a great start we are having in our second week. We are beginning to hit our stride and are looking forward to the days ahead. Though we are sorry to leave the scenic region of Navarra behind, we have great expectations for Rioja, hiking through its many vineyards while setting our sights on the city of Burgos. Then, after Burgos, all good things come to an end, we must be ready for our week-long journey across the desert-like Meseta.

But I am not worried. With Marlene as our pied piper, it will be interesting to see what new and old friends we meet along the Way as we encounter these challenges.

Blessed are you, pilgrim, if what concerns you most is not getting there, but getting there with others.

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