Although the hostel was very nice and our roommates didn’t snore last night, we still didn’t get a very good night’s sleep. The location we chose to stay was where the action was; and the action kept going all night long right outside of our window. It finally quieted down around 5:30a but the street cleaning crew started at 6 and the leader of the crew was pissed having to work an early Saturday morning, so he was yelling quite a bit.
We finally rolled out of bed around 7:45 and went down to get breakfast before we got ready (I didn’t want a disgruntled host or hostess throwing food our way again). We were on the road before 9–closer to normal for us. We passed lots of amazing structures and sights on the way out of town.
Pam had two toes rubbing and were quite disgusting to see–blood and all. We had to stop for her to take care of matters. The trail was actually pleasant up to and past this point (although too much walking on concrete which was killing our feet). George was starting to feel the effect of the road walking as well. We made it to Pantano de La Grajera (a reservoir and park outside of Logrono) by 10:30. We were making good time considering. There’s a nice cafe beside the lake where we had coffee and snacks while having a break.
The trail started to climb from the lake. It was only about 300′ but it gave us good views back of where we have been. We got into Navarette by 1p and George was only 5 minutes behind us. We grabbed a table at the first cafe that was open.
During lunch, George told us he was done for the day and was going to stay in Navarette. It was too early for us to stop and we were feeling good now that Pam was warmed up (her mornings are always rough). The plan was for us to get a bed in Ventosa (if any are available when we get there or we’ll have to walk another 6 miles to Najera) and George would leave at 6a and try to catch up with us.
It was a hot walk all the way into Ventosa. We didn’t encounter a lot of people along the way because most people try to stop walking before 2. We were ready to stop when we got to town at 4. As soon as we walked in town, a guy from a restaurant gave us directions to the Albergue. It was the one on our list and much closer than we thought but it only has 42 beds so we were afraid they’d be full. We got a room so we were relieved, happy, and exhausted.
First thing is shower followed by laundry. As we were getting settled in, Lee and Sandy were put in the same room with us. They were a little disappoint because they thought they were getting a private room (I’ve learned I’m usually a source of disappointment for most people, so I dealt with it). After our showers, we did laundry then headed to dinner at 7. We discovered something very dangerous this evening–cheap wine that tastes great. While we were doing laundry, we went down to the store in our Albergue to get some wine–they said 4 Euros. We assumed each per glass of wine but we were wrong. 4 Euros for an entire bottle and it’s really good white wine. Not our New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc, but 4 Euros!
On our way to dinner, we met another Aussie (Ross) who lived in the states for several years. We talked to him for a while about our political situation (no, Kujo, I haven’t changed my mind).
We went to the closest cafe and shared a table with Barry from Edmonds, WA and Susan from Calgary, Canada. They are both hiking about 20K a day so we might be seeing them again if we can keep pace. Barry was a music teacher in high school and college. This is a subject near and dear to me–I believe music education is much underfunded in our country and plays a very important role in keeping students on the straight and narrow and helping them develop good self discipline.
