Day 9 - Viana to Navarrete

Day 9 - Viana to Navarrete

Cloudy

Morning is the best time for walking. You are full of energy. Well maybe not full of energy but your legs are not so tired yet.  There is fresh air and the sun is not so hot. A good start in the first half of the morning, you will feel very good about yourself.

After a good rest yesterday, we again set out early today, covering 22 km in 6 hours. We walked through Logrono where some of the fellow pilgrims chose to stop at yesterday. With the stagger, we may not see them again. Logrono is a fairly big city, definitely more than a few streets wide. Walking a big city is not so fun for me. Finding the yellow arrows is not so easy sometimes because they have to compete with all the other signs in the city. No help from the locals either. They just walk on by. A fellow pilgrim finally pointed out the way.

We arrived in Navarrete early in the afternoon.  Early enough to get beds in one of my target albergues with just 10 spots. Also early enough to get grocery to cook lunch ourselves, very doable with no one fighting to use the kitchen, also economical and fun. This must be the recipe for success. Unfortunately there have to be longer days, otherwise it will take more than 40 days just get to Santiago de Compostela.

Looked like the town is deserted when we arrived early afternoon. Chatting with the other pilgrims, we all wonder where everybody is. By four or five in the afternoon, the town comes alive. We had our windows open and the people noise and traffic noise from the street is markedly different from earlier and is typical of an urban that we are used to.

Early pilgrim dinner after a late lunch proved to be a bad idea. We avoided another bottle of wine but still had a beer. Have to cut back on alcoholic drinks.