A word about the distances: what I post is the 'official' distance. It doesn't include the walking one does once one arrives at one's destination. That walking can include going an extra km trying to find the night's lodgings, any touring one might do after showering and then wandering around. In Nájera, we probably added an additional 2 km to our official walk. One has to wonder about the logic: we spend all day on our feet and then we willingly go and walk some more? But when feet are all there is for transportation, there's no choice.
The morning saw us leaving the city of Logroño, going out through new suburbs and buildings and not the dismal garbage heaps that the guides had advertised. For a good hour or more, we enjoyed walking through a huge park, complete with lake. The signs are new, a stylised shell. We followed them through Logroño and its outskirts, past vineyards until we came up to a highway. I didn't take a photo but the fence that separates the highway from the camino is completely covered with simple wooden crosses that pilgrims have stuck into the chainlink fence. The overall effect was overpowering. From my journal: 'There were hundreds if not thousands of crosses other pilgrims had stuck in the fence. The overall effect was that of a giant weaving, a huge tela. The supply is inexhaustable because there's a wood mill nearby. I am still not quite sure what I felt seeing it.'
We stopped in the next town, Navarette, for an early lunch (at 11.30) of fried eggs, frites, bread and wine/beer. We have found that that sort of lunch sticks to the ribs and helps one walk.
The next segment was utterly dismal. The camino, as printed on the maps, doesn't always go the way one anticipates. In this case, we found ourselves slogging alongside construction of a new highway. There was no shade for miles, except for the underpass from which I shot this photo. We found a Brazilian woman at an intersection, wondering where to go, so for the rest of the afternoon, the three of us walked together. It was awful: hot, hot, hot and very hard under the feet. Add in the noise and pollution from the traffic and it was most unspiritual.
We went up a hill that finally got us into a forested area where people had created a little community of rock 'elves.' It was kind of cute.
But, on the other side of the hill and forest, we went back out into the hot afternoon sun. The ground was so hard-packed. As we walked, we kept seeing horse manure, so we knew there was a horse or two ahead of us and, if ever we weren't sure of the way, we'd wait until we saw a yellow arrow or a pile of manure. This shot looks toward a bump that commemorates Roland's defeat of the giant, Ferragus.
After settling into our hotel, we walked across the lovely river in Nájera to the abbey church that has a grotto built into the red-stone mountainside. In the grotto is a medieval statue of the Virgin Mary. The cool air of the church was most welcome.
One can make out how the church is built into the cliffs behind it. The next day we would go up the cliffs. One can also discern the ever-present stork nests and a stork flying toward the tower.
Storks clack their beaks together when they are defending their territory so I took to calling them 'clackers.'
