Day 9: Logroño to Nájera (Wendy)

We had a longer stage today—almost 29 km. But after the relatively short day yesterday (only 20 km), we felt ready for a bit longer stretch. Sadly, we were walking through a sparsely populated area, the albergue didn’t serve breakfast or have a coffee machine, and since we left at 7:00 am, open cafes were nearly nonexistent. Finally, around 8:00, we stopped on a park bench and ate the rest of my emergency salami and cheese for a little picnic breakfast. But no coffee until we got to the next town around 11:00 am. 

It took us about two hours to walk out of Logroño, much of it through a lovely urban park, another first for us. We had read that the landscape would have little shade and few water fountains, so we were prepared to have a boring walk through barren terrain. Imagine our delight when we found that “shadeless” just means miles and miles of vineyards and the occasional olive tree grove. The weather was on the cool side, with gorgeous clouds that seemed painted on the sky. Most of the walk was flat and the hours flew by when we met up with a gregarious semi-professional soccer player/HVAC engineer from Scotland/Australia named Calum and a woman named Aurora from Arizona. I hope we cross paths again and will wait to share more about them later.