Day 10

9/4/2021

Logroño to Nájera

As today promised to be an 18 mile day with temperatures in the mid 80s, we got an early start and left our hotel shortly before 6:00 am. There were a lot of young people out. You could tell they were still out from the night rather than having just gotten up for the day. One guy said, “Buenos noches,” although clearly it was morning. The Spanish know how to party! Once we got out of Old Town, the streets were fairly empty.

Today’s leg was 18.7 miles in length, had a 1,095 elevation gain, and took almost six hours to complete. We have learned that these types of distances can be pretty taxing and that if we leave the hotel early, it provides us with flexibility to take breaks along the way and still get to our destination before the heat of the day.

After two and half hours and walking eight miles, we stopped in a small village called Navarrette for breakfast. We had eggs and bacon with two coffee Americanos. There were only a few hikers that passed by. I think most people get later starts than we do.

We stopped around 10:15 am and got a beer and filled our water bottles. Most folks seated at the cafe were having coffee. Jim said the guy behind the counter gave him the side eye as he was ordering beer. As we were leaving we met a guy from Virginia. We told him we were from California, and he offered his condolences. I was thinking, “Dude, you’re from Virginia. You should talk.” This is his fourth time walking the Camino. He had done the Portuguese Way previously. At 140 miles, it’s a lot shorter the Camino Frances at 500 miles.

Parts of today’s leg were quite lovely. Outside of Logroño we passed through a beautiful nature area. It included a lake and in the distance we could hear a family of ducks quaking. We also passed multiple vineyards with vines planted in red, rocky soil.

In a previous post I talked about how I entertain myself when walking 15 to 18 miles a day. Here is today’s entry: