In October and November of 2015, I walked the Camino Francés, one of the traditional pilgrimage routes to the Spanish city of Santiago de Compostela. It was a deeply emotional journey, with far-reaching implications for my life, and I’m slowly but surely capturing the memories and musings here on my blog. Read the entire series at Anna’s Camino.

Logroño had some amazing street art.

It’s weird going back through this Camino by way of photographs. I remember the walk to Navarrete pretty well, but if I skip forward and look at where I was walking the next day, I remember things ahead of time, giving me a weird sense of foresight, even though it’s actually in hindsight. For instance, I know that I was feeling sick for a while (mildly, anyway) since a day or two after leaving Pamplona. And I remember walking to Navarrete, and feeling OK. Not great, but not terrible. However, by Day 12, I know that I was in really bad shape; I ended up taking a taxi after the first hour of walking, because I just didn’t think I could make it to Santo Domingo de la Calzada in one piece.

So how was I feeling great on Day 11, and near death on Day 12? Maybe I was feeling terrible for a while, but was able to keep powering through it for a while before my body got through to my brain that now was a good time to take a break. I’m really not sure. I do know, from reading others accounts in blogs, books, and even in FB posts, that every now and then you’ll just get to a breaking point, but a good day’s rest will cure most of what ails you. That’s a very important lesson to keep in mind whether or not you plan on walking the Camino – when you feel like you can’t possibly go on, don’t lose hope – just take a break and reassess the situation before you start making drastic decisions. It really does help, I promise.

I can’t remember if Natalie and I left Viana before or after Claire, but I do have a memory of watching Claire walk away from the front door of the albergue, off to hunt for the bus that she would take to get a few days ahead of us. It’s strange to think of distance and time in this manner. We were still all in Spain, but a short bus ride would literally fast-forward Claire to an entirely new group of pilgrims, a new stage of the road, new adventures. Meanwhile, though we were left behind, we would be on the road for longer. Did this mean that we had more opportunities, or just different ones? Did Claire miss out from busing ahead, or did we miss out more for not having her with us? I think that the answer, in not being that clearcut, is very obvious.

I’ve spent enough time on various pilgrim message boards and advice sites to realize that some of the old school peregrinos stick to this silly rule that taking any form of transportation other than your own two feet (and possibly a bicycle, or a horse) is somehow “cheating.” But who’s to say that? What if the lesson you need to learn on the Camino is to not be so rigid in your concept of right and wrong? Who’s to say that the one person you really needed to meet on your pilgrimage wasn’t the bus driver, a pilgrim who’s currently up ahead, or even just a local who’s riding the train? The lesson here is that you can be sad that your friend left you behind, or you can be disappointed in your own lack of fitness, or even annoyed that your job didn’t give you enough vacation days to walk the entire thing, but you should never, EVER judge anyone (including yourself) for the way the road is to be traveled. We all need different things, we all have different weaknesses (and strengths), and we all get something different out of our life’s caminos. Celebrate the variety, and celebrate that your friend makes it onto the right bus. Then keep walking your walk.

One of the weirder things that happened on this day was passing a literal “Game of Goose” game board, laid out in marble alongside the Camino in Logroño. For most of the Camino, I kept hearing references to this mysterious game, said to have Templar ties. It was mentioned a few times in my guidebook, and now and then I’d see a version for sale in shop windows. Every time I mentioned it to other pilgrims, though, they’d either heard of it once or twice in passing, or had never heard of it and kind of laughed it off that I was so keen on finding out more. About two weeks from this day, I met another Anna who explained the game a bit more to me, but I’ll leave that memory for later. The bottom line for Logroño is that the artwork was lovely, and I was still no closer to finding out what it was all about, other than that it had a weird name and seemed to feature all of the landmarks of the Camino.

Logroño is a big, busy town. It’s the capital city of the autonomous region of La Rioja, and as such, is just as much of a bustling metropolis as you’d expect. Both Natalie and I were a little put off by it, me probably more, since she’d already walked through the city on her last pilgrimage. It’s not that I didn’t like the place, or want to explore further, it’s just that we hadn’t been somewhere with tall buildings and that many traffic lights and people since Pamplona, and I’d gotten used to things being a little quieter. It didn’t help that, as we were walking through one of the many small town squares (more like a neighborhood green), we walked right through a loud public dispute. This enraged, seemingly inebriated guy was screaming at the top of his lungs outside of an apartment building. We lost sight of him for a minute, then the next thing we knew, he was racing after a car, banging on the side of it, then throwing things at it as it got away, yelling the entire time. We looked at each other and picked up the pace a little, as there weren’t many people about, and it didn’t seem like a good time to get noticed by this dude, no matter what he was angry about. Nothing happened, and we both brushed it off as we made our way to a nearby café to grab coffees and something to snack on before walking out of town.

The café we picked had a different feel than most of the ones I encountered along the Camino Frances. It was close to city center, and had the feel of a chain restaurant – not as corporate as Starbucks, but definitely not a mom and pop place. We grabbed a tortilla to share, and some cafés con leche, and I seem to remember a chocolate croissant, as well. She read over her guidebook and checked out the map, and I did some people watching. One of the things I noticed was that I spotted a gay couple enjoying breakfast together; I remember this specifically because it warmed my heart, and also helped me realize that I was finally getting a read on Spanish body language a little better. Outside, I watched a father walk by, wheeling his toddler daughter (decked out in a pink, impossibly sparkly and ruffled outfit) in a stroller. An elderly lady, hunch backed, in compression hose and head scarf, hobbled by, leading a little terrier on a leash. Several teenage boys in grass-stained football uniforms walked by, clearly exhausted. It was a busy morning.

The walk out of Logroño seemed to take FOREVER. It was another one of those days where you have a map that shows you where you’re going, you know the mileage, you think you have all of the information you need to get to your destination, yet for some reason no matter how long or how far you walk, you’re still no closer to the stopping point. It’s a very particular feeling for those who are walking long distances, and maybe it’s a very particular feeling for those who are coming down with a cold, I’m not sure. Either way, it felt like Logroño would never end. Even once we got to the beautiful Grajera Reservoir, with its surrounding park land, and knew that we were only a little over 5k away from our destination, it still felt like forever and a day to Navarrete.

The greenway that leads from Logroño to the park surrounding the Grajera Reservoir is very popular with locals, and we passed several kids’ birthday parties on our way through. We also got to walk over some nature trails that had wooden bridges. One bridge made me stop and stare for a while – there were HUGE carp in the water, at least as big as some of the ducks that swam above them. I tried to get some photos, but nothing great turned out.

At times it was a little scary to be a pilgrim on this park trail shared with enthusiastic weekend bikers. Wherever possible, we got off of the paved trail and walked on the natural ones, but there were bikes everywhere, and from time to time I was unnerved to hear them approaching from around the bend at breakneck speeds. We managed not to get run over or cause any accidents, and once we got to the reservoir, we decided to have a short lunch and take a rest. While we sat there, several people went by on horseback, and I was a little wistful, both because it would have been heavenly to get off my feet, and because I genuinely love horses, and because I was thinking I’d love to have the option to go horseback riding on the weekends in my normal life back in the states. Lunch was bread, cheese, sausages, and little tomatoes. While we ate, I wondered where Claire had eaten her lunch today.

Leaving the park, we passed through a section of the park that reminded me of some state parks back home, complete with little cabins for campers less inclined to tent living. It reminded me strongly of my days as a girl scout, and I spent most of the rest of the afternoon in some kind of nostalgic reverie, paying close attention to all of the birds and plants that we passed. Sometimes it felt like I needed to take in every detail, like I’d be getting quizzed on it after my trip. I’m glad that’s not the case, because I have no memories of walking into Navarrete, until we were firmly in the little town, walking around in search of the albergue.

It was afternoon, around 3pm, by the time we reached Navarrete, and I was beat. My feet were throbbing, and I was in desperate need of water. We walked into town by a high street; I think we were in search of a particular address, but I can’t remember, exactly. What I do remember is feeling lost and exhausted, and that the entire town seemed to be taking siesta. It was SO quiet, and there was an air of abandonment. I was running out of hope and energy, and just plodding along after Natalie, feeling incapable of independent thought. She saw a little public fountain under a couple of trees, with a bench nearby, and we headed that way. Just as I’d taken a seat and resolved to sleep there for the rest of my life, a lady leaned out of a nearby second story window to flap out a dusty throw rug, and spotted us by the fountain. She smiled, leaned over the window ledge, and yelled down directions to the municipal albergue, which was only a block or two away. Saved again by the kindness of strangers. This was to become a trend of my Camino.

The municipal albergue was being staffed by a very nice elderly gentleman who showed us where to put our boots and walking sticks, and led us to our bunks. We showered, washed our clothes, and hung everything out to dry on the little rotating circular metal clothes lines that were anchored outside of our bedroom window. I really wish I had one of those for my apartment; it’s an excellent idea – except for when you forget to put clothespins on your clothes, and they fall into the street, as my towel did that evening. Luckily, another pilgrim saw my towel and brought it inside to the hospitalero, so I got it back with little trouble.

Just next door to the albergue, we’d spotted a little bar, so we headed over there to catch some wi-fi and grab a drink. It was there that I experienced my first glass of pacharán, a lovely Spanish liquor that I’ve really been missing since coming back to the states. It was Natalie’s drink of choice, and though I didn’t drink it always, a sip was always welcome. My drink of choice in Spain, when not sipping red wine, was Ballantine’s Finest, a sweet and inviting Scotch whiskey. I went looking for a glass of Jameson’s, my go-to, when I got to Roncesvalles on Day 2, but the closest they had to Irish whiskey was Scotch, and I stuck with it for the rest of my trip, when I wasn’t drinking red wine, pacharán, or on one occasion, hierbas. The other major beverage of my time in Spain was a major favorite of the peregrino crowd: Aquarius, which is a (non-alcoholic) canned sports drink that’s a little like Gatorade, except it actually tastes good.

Anyway, we sat down to have a drink, and that turned into an afternoon at the café, just hanging out and recovering from the day’s walk. It turned out that I was starving, so I ordered both a tortilla and a bocadillo (sandwich, in this case ham and cheese), plus I had a pacharán and a couple of glasses of scotch over the course of the afternoon. Soon after we sat down, Tom poked his head in the bar. He’d just arrived in town, and stopped to say hi before dropping his things off at the albergue. Eventually he wandered back in and ordered a glass of wine. We talked for a while, and he said that he’d left Mark behind much earlier in the day, and we probably wouldn’t be seeing him in Navarrete tonight, at the pace he was currently walking (his feet were really banged up). Maybe 45 minutes to an hour later, we were all surprised (and overjoyed, as we were all a couple of drinks in by this point) to see Mark poke his head in the bar, too! The gang was all here! He went to get cleaned up, then came back and ordered his trademark “large” beer, cheerfully demanding the biggest mug in the house.

We all sat around for another hour or so, until it started to get close to time for dinner. The guys went back to the albergue, and Natalie and I decided to start checking out our dining options for the evening. When I asked the bartender for my check to settle up, I was blown away by the fact that I only owed 12 euros for everything – three or four drinks, a slice of tortilla, and a sandwich. When I reacted with shock, the bartender thought I was freaking out because it was too expensive, and Natalie had to translate that it was just the opposite. I asked the bartender to check again, because I really didn’t want them to lose out on me if she’d forgotten to include anything, but she double checked, and it was correct.

We did a turn about town, walking down a couple of streets, checking out the church, looking at menus on every restaurant we spotted, but one restaurant really caught our attention. Bar Deportivo (also known as Casa de Comidas de Begoña y Antonio) is tiny, and doesn’t look like much from the outside. Inside is simply decorated, while managing to still feel warm and inviting. The family that run the place are warm and attentive, and though they speak limited English (not their fault – mine for not knowing the language), they did their best to make us feel like we were at home. The little restaurant has full seating in the back, but we were peckish, so instead of ordering off-menu, we chose to grab a seat at the bar and eat a selection of tapas. Mark came to join us a little later, and he was pleased with the size of the beers, lol.

Bar Deportivo has ruined me in regards to tapas. Here in the states, I’ve yet to come across any places that do tapas like Spain, where they’re available to see at the bar, and in great quantities. Here, you normally order your tapas like you would any appetizer, sight unseen, off the menu, one at a time. It’s not done in the same sense of community, and really takes away from the intended experience, in my opinion. There, all through Spain, you see all sorts of options right there at the bar when you get your drink, and you can just point out a selection of the tastes you’d like, and the barkeep will put them on a plate and hand them to you then and there. In many places, you get a free tapa when you order your drink. It might be the bar’s choice, but it’s still free food, and typically delicious. Anyway, this place had some of the most beautiful little tapas I saw over the course of my entire Camino. They were delicious, too. Add to that the wife/owner, Begoña, took a shine to Natalie, and gave us free food just because, and we were in heaven. I’m sad that I only got to experience one meal there, actually. If I lived in the area, it would be my favorite spot.

After dinner, it was time to hit the hay. We got back to the albergue well before the doors were locked for the night, and I was asleep by the time my head hit the pillow. We woke before dawn the next morning, and it was still dark out when we left the albergue. It was misting heavily enough that I needed my pack cover and raincoat, and though we’d intended to wait until the next town to grab breakfast, we stopped just after the church to grab a coffee at a tiny hole-in-the-wall café. I remember this place because it was either the first or second time that I ordered a freshly squeezed orange juice (zumo de naranja), and I felt guilty when I saw that she was doing it all by hand with the tiniest of juicers. I also got a delicious chocolate bar there, and never saw that exact brand again. Ah, mornings on the Camino, when you can eat a chocolate bar without shame. I distinctly remember that my face felt clogged up and on fire, and even the chocolate bar didn’t really cheer me up. I got a second café con leche before we left, but it didn’t do much to improve my mood. It was going to be a long morning.

Click here to read about Day 12.