The Song in My Head: Lovely Day - Bill Withers
Phrase of the Day: “The Camino Will Provide”
Today’s (Random) Craving/Memory: Stomping on sprinkler heads in elementary school
Total Steps: 47,576 steps
Total Walking Distance: 23.7 miles / 38.1 kilometers
⏰ Wake Up: 5:15am
💤 Sleep: 9:30pm
Goodmorning my lovely followers.
Today I woke up at 5:15am. Max and I are leaving at 5:30am to begin our 30km trek to Nájera real early today to beat the heat.
We were sweating last night. It was so hot, it’s starting to get to the point where I consider sleeping outside with my sleeping bag at some of these albergues.
Anyways, we packed up, whispered our goodbyes to Céline and Josefine and got on the road. We won’t be seeing them again. Sad.
Also, when we were leaving, Max bought a water out of the vending machine and somehow got two.
It’s a Christmas miracle.
We had a slow start. Max was tired and his shoes were hurting so he put his slides back on.
He’s been doing the whole Camino in them.
We continued though, watching the sunrise and eventually making our way into Navarrete where we got some food and I stretched.
Then a cat came over and sat on Max’s lap. He was looking for food we didn’t give him any.
I continued on solo from here; Max waited another 15 minutes in town to get a RedBull from the Carrefour when it opened to wake himself up.
I got moving, and it got hot.
Open land, minimum shade, and very few water fountains.
As I was on my walk I had so many different songs flying through my head, yet listening to any of them would break my commitment to cut out all music during this trip.
So I have made a playlist where I’m adding every song that comes into my head throughout the rest of the Camino, starting today.
So I can listen to them after the trip, and for y’all to realize how chaotic my brain is when it comes to music always playing in my head.
Link is on the main page and below.
Another thought I had during today’s walk was how peaceful it’s been with no social media, and no communication with anyone except who’s physically around me.
Truly enjoying this detox.
I arrived into Nájera at 11:45am. A 5.5ish hour trek. I walked through a market in the city center and over a river to get to the albergue.
This one does not open until 2pm so I went back over to the grass by the river to lay down and eat a kiwi.
Side note: I have been walking the past 4ish days in my Chacos with my toe socks. Truly a legendary setup. No blisters, no foot pain. I’m bulletproof.
Max got to town at 12:45pm. We chilled by the water, and I went to go dip my feet in the river.
A couple steps out, I stepped on a big thorn, it went right into my foot.
I went back, sat down and got my tweezers and knife and started doing surgery on my foot to get it out.
Nothing was sharp enough, so I was taking apart my disposable face razor blade to use instead when I sliced my finger wide open.
Seems like we used all our good luck on the vending machine water bottles this morning.
Max got a bandaid from another Peregrino and I continued picking at the thorn in my foot.
I eventually got it out, and also patched up my finger. All is well.
We then evaluated our energy levels and decided to get up and push onto the next town, 5.7km further. Azofra.
By this time it was 2pm and hot as balls. We stopped at a market in our way out, I got some candy and Max got 2 sandwiches.
We got to Azofra at 3:20pm. Checked into the albergue, and found Julio, Ben, and the Kiwis here as well.
These rooms were not dormitory style, and only had 2 beds per room. Hopefully this won’t be as hot-sauna as yesterday was.
We showered, I passed out on my bed, and then at 5pm we met the rest of the squad at the only restaurant in town to get food.
Food was great, we also got ice cream after, and then we headed back home so I could wash and hang up my clothes.
After I did laundry, we all hung out with our feet in the water basin.
Max and I then went to our room and planned out the next couple days. It’s now 9pm and we are going to sleep early to get good rest.
Tomorrow we go to Grañon. 23km. There is supposedly a really cool donativo there, with a piano. I can’t wait.
See y’all then,
David