Day 6 Logrono-Navarette - 12km

"Knock Knock"

The door of our hospital room is flung open by the volunteer at the albergue. He wants to if we are ready to leave yet. Thankfully we are already up and dressed. Glancing over his shoulder as he pushes into our room we see the loft room is already full of empty beds. We are the last pilgrims remaining again.

It is still not 8am and we still have plenty of time till we should be forced out the door but this volunteer wants us out quicksmart so he can go about his day.

Good morning and welcome to another day on the camino!!

Struggling with blisters and our heavy packs as we walk down all the flights of stairs the volunteer walks next to us with an unimpressed look on his face, not offering to help carry anything. Thanks so much.

He shows us straight to the large wooden doors but we need to pick up our hiking boots from the rack. Ignoring his expression we sit down in the hallway and slowly and painfully put our boots on. There is no way we are leaving without having even put our shoes on.

As we exit out the large wooden doors we almost trip over two pilgrims who have been sleeping on the doorstep all night. As they stretch and rise to their feet obviously expecting a warm welcome at the albergue, the volunteer points us in the direction of a cafe that will serve breakfast and then slams the door shut - almost catching the nose of one of the pilgrims.

Turns out they were struggling with the heat like we had been and when the snoring got too bad at the last albergue picked up all their belongings and decided to trek through the night. This didn't really prove too many problems until their headlight battery ran out leaving them to stumble along the trail in the dark. Well at least they will be first in the queue for the albergue now.

We head off to the cafe and sit next to the Spanish shower exhibitionist from the evening before - there's a mental picture I didn't need prior to caffeine. The typical Spanish breakfast involves small sweet cakes served with coffee. Aurelia is constantly being offered these sweet cakes by Spanish women we meet. She has since become addicted and on occasion I have seen her stuff so many into her cheeks that we are suprised she can even breathe.

After breakfast we go and sit in the square opposite the chemist. I spy Barbara who is waiting for her bus on the other side of the square. She is travelling back to the UK today and Judy will walk the remaining distance alone. We had agreed to meet up with her further down the trail. Unfortunately we never saw her again on the camino.

As we sat in the freezing cold wind attempting to re tape my feet -Raya happily playing with her nina and nino in the carrier - the tensions surrounding the decision to walk on erupted into a heated argument. We really had to make the decision now - before we were in some small town with no other transport option than to walk out - which may become impossible. The decision to walk on for each of us had to be made for us as individuals accepting that we had no idea if the difficulty level would rise as we continued. It was another suck it up moment. We had to discuss our fears and dreams and disappointments in a very real way.

On reflection Nick thought the camino was all over. He saw our camino experience ending right there in the shadow of the bus station which would comfortably and reliably carry us to a town of our choice.He called my decision to continue my 'fulcrum' moment. I believe it was 600mg of Ibuprofen blessedly kicking in. Either way we decided we were going to finish the camino and decided to head to Navarette which was only 12 kms away.

Walking out of the city we saw a supermercado selling hot baguettes and avocado - oh we were craving avocado - and avocado just makes everything feel better.

We continued walking along the footpath next to a busy road looking for somewhere to have a picnic and let Aurelia crawl around. As we pulled her out of the carrier she gave us a huge cheeky monster smile. The smile usually reserved for when she has been cheeky. Beanie - check. Jacket - check. Shoes - oh dear.

Somewhere since leaving the city Aurelia has decided to help lighten the load by throwing one of her shoes from the carrier. Her only pair of shoes that she has with us are now missing the partner. We consider for a millisecond going and looking for the little lost shoe before we accept that it is what she is offering up to the camino. We are fairly confident she will take her first steps along the way of St James - becoming a real pilgrim - and so will buy her another pair of shoes here in Spain.

After our picnic in the park (where we saw a Spanish lady wipe her dogs bum with paper !!!!) we headed off. It was an absolute relief to see that the majority of the trail was paved walking around a large lake. Finally - walking the camino was no more difficult than taking your dog out for a walk. My feet have never been more grateful.

Unfortunately as there were no public toilets we were forced into taking a wilderness wee in the park - oh so glamorous. Just as I pulled my pants down a swarm of mosquitos descended. Fantastic - now I will be scratching my way to Santiago.

The path meandered on and we passed several who had either had a late start like us or who were pushing really hard and had walked starting before Logrono. We passed one lady who walked reciting Hail Mary's the entire way with her rosary beads clutched in her hands. I could tell Nick was itching to throw away a few one liners but he just managed to keep them to himself.Just

As the trail ran parallel to the highway and we ascended to the top of a hill from which we could see Navarette in the distance - we saw the crosses which had been made and attached to the wire fence.

As Nick and I helped Raya thread a cross to place on the fence we were remined of how many people had walked this same path this year, this month, this week an even this same day. The EXACT same path. We felt part of a much larger picture and encouraged and humbled at the same time.

As we pushed on past the iron bull we tried to boost our spirits with the knowledge that the albergue was not far to go.

As we walked into the city we passed the ground of the initial pilgrim hospital. What an appropriate place to sit and rest my feet. There was nothing I could do but stop. My socks were saturated from my oozing toes and walking even another 100m was out of the question.

As we sat on the grass in the sunshine watching Raya crawl around happily we saw a flood of pilgrims pouring down the trail. Aah so it seems the daily race for the albergue had begun again.

There was nothing to do but let them walk right on past us. We would pay for a pension if needs be.We had learnt the hard way that when your feet give you an instruction - you do as you are told. And so we sat.

Finally as the throbbing eased slightly we decided it was now or never so hauled ourselves and packs up off the grass and walked up the hill. Why oh why does the final stretch always have to have some form of hill - it's like the icing on the cake of camino torture.

We reached the albergue, exhausted and sweating in the sweltering heat. The overcast skies and freezing wind had vanished to be replaced with a horrendously humid day. I looked over Nick's shoulder and saw that there was plenty of room to stand in the foyer of the albergue and wait while pilgrim passports were stamped. There was no need to make people and a small child wait outside in the heat. Yet we were ignored. Knocking on the door was ignored and my frustration slowly built.

People were now queuing behind us having walked to the other albergues and found they were full. After what seemed like an eternity the hospitalero let us in before slamming the door behind him least the two elderly pilgrims enter the cooler room before their time.

He assigned us to a room in the loft explaining it was almost the last empty beds, explained the bathroom were co-ed - now that was going to be interesting -- and then waffled on about his son who was a Jesuit priest in South America. Crikey he was giving us his son's whole life story - and I thought we were proud parents. I silently began to pray for Mercy in my head and for him to be suddenly struck mute.

I nodded my head while the word "bed" repeated in my ears. The entire time we stood listening to him we were carrying our packs and sweating. I was expecting I could take a shower or swim in the puddle we were going to leave on his tiled floor.I glanced over a Nick and saw he too was doing the "mm that's really interesting" head movement that I secretly knew meant "get me the hell out of here".

As soon as he passed our passports back across the table we did a snatch and grab and moved as fast as possible to reach our beds. My feet felt wet and mushy and Nick's shoulder and knee were killing him.

As we climbed the second set of stairs a person with a yellow bandana around their neck walked towards us "Wolfgang" we cried. We were both so excited to see each other and it was a welcome and unexpected surprise as we had not seen him on the path that morning. Instantly our spirits felt uplifted - just like you do when you greet a friend who has returned at the airport. Seeing Wolfgang had become one of the highlights of our day.

We were thankful that we left our picnic when we did because once we arrived in the loft there was only 2 more beds left for the elderly people who had been behind us.

Removing my boots and dunking my feet straight into a bucket of salty ice water I looked around the converted loft and got chatting to people nearby who weren't already sleeping in their beds. The older man who had taken the last bed was a Canadian guy named Ardt who was in his mid seventies. He was walking alone and we marvelled at the mental strength to be able to do this trek alone. Not only would you lack an encourager but someone to share in the high moments with. We were inspired by his attitude to life. He was going at his own pace but he was getting there - good on him.

Finally it was our turn and we went down 3 flights of stairs to the bathroom. Actually having co-ed bathrooms made the showering of Aurelia much easier as it let us work as a team. Nick took Raya into the shower and as I stood waiting with the towel the shower curtain next to Nick's shower was flung open and my eyes were assaulted by full frontal 60 year old male nudity. I quickly averted my eyes and tried my best to repress the images. He dried himself at his leisure and thankfully was towelled off before Aurelia was passed out to me and traumatised.

I had seen just about enough bathroom exhibitionism for one camino, thanks.

Once Raya was clean Nick took her up stairs and I showered. Once dressed and leaning over the sink ready to brush my teeth the door to the bathroom swings open and lo and behold here is the guy I got to know intimately earlier in the afternoon. He glances at my toothbrush and with a look of horror starts backing out of the bathroom with his toothbrush in hand saying 'sorry, sorry'.

I felt like saying "dude I just saw you completely naked I think it's safe to spit toothpaste in front of me".

Changed into our relatively cleaner clothes we headed next door and had THE best pilgrim meal of the camino. AMAZING pasta for entree, pork for the main and tiramisu for desert - my perfect meal.

Washed, fed and now time for bed we were tucking ourselves in by 8.30pm. Thankfully Raya continues to go straight to sleep as soon as we put her in the KinderKot.

Lights slowly were turned off as people settled into their sleeping bags and finished journalling. All except for the Spanish people in the corner of the room. Once I finished threading my blisters for the night I rolled over thankful for my little orange best friends - my ear plugs.

Day 5 - Viana - Logrono - 10km

10th May

Albergue
€5

Weather
Overcast and threatening rain for most of the day - when the sun comes out the weather is steaming

There is a moment before fully waking that I enjoy. That moment when the limbs of the body are relaxed and the eyes are still closed as if the senses of the body are warming up slowly one by one. This is a lovely state from which you can easily slip back into your dreams if you have awoken to silence around you, or your bed is comfortable and the temperature right.

The parent of a young child knows that this semi dream state is left behind, long forgotten when toddler-dom arrives. Aurelia wakes most mornings with energy burning to escape her small body and if she has undone the zip on her Kinderkot then she loves nothing better than to crawl over to you and welcome you awake by picking your nose for you!

But this morning my ears informed me that she was still sleeping, my ears instinctively searching for the soft sounds of her regular breathing. However this dream like state was not to last as the assault on my ears was so disorientating I was forced to switch on my other senses to make sense of my surroundings. What on earth is that noise -is it French? Why are French people shouting all around me? Why does my bed feel so hard? And who has chopped off my feet and replaced them with burning balls of fire!! Where the hell am I ?

The answer to those questions was I was rapidly waking up, surrounded by people, on the living room floor of the albergue where we stayed last night. I was not in my bed at home and the hard tiled floor would explain the general aches and pains I felt In my hip and knee joints. Those burning balls of pain which used to be feet - I was responsible for those - a reminder to not bite off more than I could chew in future. Okay, okay I’ve learnt my lesson I promise

Apparently if you are a French pilgrim your voice has no volume switch and so you are left only to speak so that your voice reverberates of everything that surrounds you - my head included. My eyes go to the Kinderkot once again - surely I was mistaken, there is no way that Raya could be sleeping through this noise - an army mess hall would be quieter than this. Pilgrims observe me checking on Aurelia and their excitement at seeing Aurelia wake up only causes them to raise their voices in anticipation. I am sending a plague of blisters on anyone who wakes my daughter at 6am today and make it clear I want them to back away from her Kinderkot.

As I take in the pilgrims around me not only do I notice they are all loud - I had been sleeping with ear plugs in - but they are all dressed the same - in wet weathers. Seems that the sound I had heard had in fact been rain, and not ‘the soft pattering on a tin roof lulling you to sleep rain’ but rather the ‘torrential downpour that will make the path a mud bath today’ kind of rain. Varying assortments of ponchos parade pass Nick and I as we slowly start sorting our clothes - don’t they know it’s not raining inside - and the French pilgrims have the most impressive rain gear we have seen so far. Turns out this is because they have walked from Le Puy and for the 5 weeks of walking to the Pyrenees they had encounterd rain and mud every single day - hmm so the French are responsible for bringing this bad weather with them.

I start the slow process of bandaging my feet remembering today that my sister in law had asked me to take regular photos of my feet and blisters if I got “any really awesome ones”. Well these babies are redefining awesome!! After a combination of gauze, compede , elastoplast and electrical tape I put my socks on and squeeze my feet into my boots. This is going to be bad, really, really bad.

This was not the experience I was hoping for and certainly not what I wanted to be journaling about but a glossed over golden blog does nothing to share the realities of the camino experience and it is these realities that teach our minds the lessons from which the camino becomes so meaningful. Therefore the “warts and all” or shall I say “blisters and all” version must be shared.

The overwhelming feeling towards my body is anger. It seems that my body has a history of being reliably unreliable. Nick has always been fit and I on the other hand have a “please infect me/ injure me” sign on my forehead which is apparently irresistible to Life. This camino experience I had envisioned as empowering and uplifting. Instead my body and my mental strength appeared to have run for cover at the first sight of strife. Today I was worried we had bitten off more than we could chew and since it was my job to carry Aurelia if I wasn’t up to the task then I would be responsible for our family trekking adventure coming to a premature end. Never one to let go of a dream easily I tried to pull myself together to get my head around the walk ahead of us. Today would only be 10km and we only had to take it one step at a time. Small achievable goals was the strategy of the day.

Slowly pilgrim by pilgrim cleared out of the living room and it appears the silence is what wakes Aurelia from her sleep. Perhaps she too was slowly turning her senses on one by one and once the coast was clear she knew it was safe to make an appearance - clever peregrino.

We organise our packs (the speed with which we are doing this is not improving we note) and head out the door. At least we weren’t the last to leave today. A lady is sitting with her feet, soaking them in salt to clean her blisters while she argues with the albergue security man that ‘she doesn’t care if it 8am -her feet are not ready yet”. When you stay in an albergue you are able to stay for one night only and then you must have left by 8am the next day. We pass out the door with 10 minutes to spare.

The time it takes to get dressed, feed Aurelia, have breakfast and pack our bags has worked in our favour as now the rain has stopped. The downside is that the wet muddy trail has now become irresistibly boggy for our boots. We squelch slowly along the trail and try to avoid ending up on our backsides. The muddy track also makes it very difficult to find anywhere suitable for a nappy change for Ray.

The walk is mainly flat before a short climb before entering Logrono. The landscape today is not what we would term ‘inspiring’ as we spend a lot of time walking through the “Embalse de las Canas” which is a wetlands reserve. At some

points the ground is so muddy and churned up that we can’t see the footprints of earlier pilgrims and there are signs pointing in two opposite directions. If we hadn’t have met pilgrims who had walked this section before we could have easily rambled the wrong way.

With the I-pod on again and Raya enjoying being in the carrier with the cooler weather we see the first few signs to Logrono and console ourselves that we are almost there. I place a small pebble on the stone sign marker - my “’offering up of my sins” and the cursing I have done with my feet today, there are plenty to offer. As we walk under the motorway we see some pilgrim graffiti and shortly we enter the city of Logrono.

As we head towards the albergue we anticipate finding the location and having a small picnic lunch as there is plenty of time to kill before we expect the albergue to open and, as we have only walked 10km and it is only noon we anticipate most pilgrims will have walked on.

We see the street with the albergue and I am ready to head to the grassy river banks for something to eat. Thankfully Nick decides we should head down to the albergue to check it out. As we walk down towards the albergue, which is located on a corner, we hear voices. As we get closer to the corner we see that in the street to the side of the albergue a long queue of pilgrims have already formed, with at least 70 pilgrims waiting, and more in the courtyard area. Nick and I can’t believe it -we really have no option but to join the queue to ensure we have a bed inside the albergue that night. I silently curse the albergue experience and wish we were just checking into a hotel for the evening. The weather has now warmed up and we are sweating standing in the queue. No one is interested in letting me move in front of them to stand in the shade with Aurelia - some pilgrims true colours are showing.

As we stand in the queue hugging the wall and the small amount of shade we can find we see familiar faces in the queue ahead of us. Standing in front of us are a large group of German people. As germans walk down the street in the direction of the end of the queue they stop to speak to the germans in front of us -and then remain there. Now when this happens for the first time we think perhaps they were part of the initial group but as it continues we become aware that all these blokes are just pushing in. Who pushes in front of a woman and small child in the heat? Nick is gearing up to have serious words with the german in front of us (who does himself no additional favours by lighting up a ciggarette next to our small child).

As the queue begins to move I decide our standing and waiting is over and I push through the queue with Aurelia to the shade and seats of the courtyard so she can crawl on the floor and have something to eat. I ignore the disgruntled expressions from pilgrims in the queue. Slowly one by one the pilgrims are taken into the albergue to have their credentials stamped. The process here seems to be excruciatingly slow.

Nick enters the courtyard area with his pack as the queue progresses and many jokes are had at the size of the pack. Thankfully one pilgrim thoughtfully mentioned that a small child was waiting in the queue and one of the volunteers came out in the courtyard looking for us. She ushered us all inside, silencing the people complaing with a French tongue lashing.

The albergue here was large with well maintained facilities and they did their best to accommodate us with Raya by giving us the hospital room when it became free. However they are ultra strict at this albergue, the list of rules is long and they make no exceptions. Miss curfew and enjoy sleeping on the street without any of your belongings as some pilgrims apparently had to do.

Our meal is eaten in as I can’t walk to a restaurant. My feet are weeping and my socks were soaked when I removed them. I suspect that my toes are now infected.

Raya loves the attention of the dorm room set up and after a short bum shuffle away she bum shuffles back again - this time with a big smile on her face and her hands full of biscuits from the male pilgrims she has charmed along her journey around the dorm room.

We are both tired but we are thankful that only one of us is carrying an injury. Nick is left to do the showering of Aurelia on his own as standing on my feet in the shower I find a difficult process without juggling a slippery toddler. I say a prayer of thanks for having married a man who is such a hands on exceptional dad. I know that with such a heavy pack Nick must be doing it tough however he never complains and accepts it as another challenge on the camino.

The showering experience in the women’s bathroom is proving interesting. There appears to be some ‘cultural differences’ in how women from different countries approach the showering process. Without a doubt the Spanish women I encountered were the exhibitionists.

British women were the most prudish dressing entirely before coming out of the cubicle where other pilgrims waited to have a shower. I tended to put my undies and bra on and then jump out for the next person to have a shower, getting dressed outside. This seemed to be the most common option.

However the Spanish women would strip down naked whilst waiting in the queue, then exit the shower cubicle naked and remain so whilst brushing their teeth and hair. After a long walk each day this assault on the eyes was the last thing I needed.

The usual wash, eat, journal and sleep process is carried out and by 9pm another day on the camino is over. The female French volunteer has kindly secured us the private hospital room on the top floor of the albergue and we move our belongings up there and settle in for the night. The plan tomorrow is to find a pharmacy and see what range of over the counter drugs Spain has to offer it’s pilgrims.