Nájera

Back in Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port, when we picked up our pilgrim passports, they also gave us a “map” showing the camino broken down into 32 stages. It has served as our unofficial guide ever since, setting the destination for each day and preparing us for how long the walk that day will be. It has also highlighted a fairly serious flaw in our plan – that we didn’t really plan enough time for this journey. Assuming, for sake of argument, that we could complete this walk without a single rest day (we can’t) and that we are willing to power right through cities like Burgos and León (we’re not), the best we could do is reach Santiago de Compostela late on our last day, long after we’d be able to check-in and receive our compostela (the certificate you get for completing the camino).

We do see a handful of shorter days that we can maybe squish together into a single, Pamplona-like march. Or, perhaps we can do a stage and a bit extra each day so that, over the course of the next few weeks, we squeeze a couple more days into the schedule. These are conversations for another day, however, as we are still only on row two of the map.

I feel like we’re finally getting the Spanish two breakfast thing down, grabbing a quick pastry and cafe con leche before hitting the road in the morning and then fueling up again in whatever town lies for or five miles down the road. That usually means we’re in reasonably good spirits when we set off, even though every single day of this “vacation” begins with alarm clocks going off.

It is another long one today and we’ll be splitting up again roughly halfway, at a town called Navarrete. On a positive note, the weather is overcast, making the temperature much more pilgrim-friendly. And we only have 576 km left to go!

As a stop on the camino, Nájera is pretty underwhelming. When Nick and I stroll in, everything is closed (of course) but, unlike many of the other towns we have passed through, the old city hasn’t really been restored at all and the streets on the way to our hotel feel like a mugging waiting to happen (the hotel is very nice though).

We do find a nice pintxos restaurant near the river, where we partake of some revueltos con hongos, one of the worst things I have eaten in a very, very long time (possibly going as far back as the Ukrainian jellied pig’s foot). It may be just this particular preparation, as scrambled eggs with mushrooms sounds pretty difficult to turn into an earth-flavored (not in a good way) raw oyster-textured delicacy but, hat’s off to them, they managed it here. Sorry, no pics but, if you have a dog that has eaten a lot of grass and then barfed on your hardwood (not naming any names here), you’ve already seen it. Most expensive thing on the menu, of course.