Thursday, April 21, 2011

En route to Navarette

We left Torres at 6 and finally ended up at 12:30 and 20 miles later in Navarette. I am tired. I think that maybe Stu took out life insurance on me as he is trying to kill me. Every day is another experience on this walk. You meet interesting people. Yesterday we walked the morning with an Irish man living in England who is a pilot for Ryan Air. He flew for 10 years and now teaches pilots. We sit and talk about planes and plane crashes. In the pm I met up with a Spanish family.  She was a professor of mathematics and he was in economics they have two daughters 11 and 13. This was their second year walking the Camino. They do two weeks during their vacation.  We ate with them and a gal from Oregon and one from Arkansas. Later we met a Brazilian engineer. He worked long hours each day and made a lot of money. He quit to find life. 

Today we met 2 gals from Ireland two from Canada and a couple we saw throughout the day from Germany. We are in the wine region so we have walked for miles with vines on either side  almond groves and olives fill out the vistas. We stopped at the church in Logrono to pray for health and happiness for all we know. Unfortunately the joy of the walk chafes dramatically as you try not be crushed by cars at the intersections or stab an unsuspecting pedestrian with your poles. Miles of park land followed as the trail went up steeply then down and back up to our albergue. Once signed in we went directly to the bar next door. Standard order beer. Peso light salad pizza. Yumm.

There is a mass tonight at 8:30 followed by a parade. I will let you know if we make it. 
The albergue was very noise with many thoughtless people. 3 floors 40 beds  the first two floors had 2 showers and 2 toilets in a single room  down the hall 1 more toilet. The third floor folks had no facilities and had to come to ours. No problem except the bathrooms are coed and no place in them to hang clothes. They tried to monitor having only women then men take turns using the facilities.  in addition the door wouldn't stay shut. Various attempts on many different ways resulted in the door always being noisily shut.  we only paid 5 e.  We thought we would make some soup for an evening treat. 40 people must have the same idea with only 4 burners we decided to wait. Most albergues open at 2 pm. This one at 2:30.  We were 22 in line. By the time we had completed the check in an hour had past.  Every one was tired and a little cranky. Some want read, nap, talk, party. 

After eating we generally take a walk following the yellow arrows out of town to make our morning get away in the dark easier to transition onto the path. On the way back we visited the church to bless our friends. It was dark inside with one euro the lights come on and the whole tabernacle and statues were all gold and lit up exquisitely.  Very transforming.  Joan  

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