emilyonearth

On my Camino app that has information about the towns, a list of albergues and places to stay, a map, elevation profile, et cetera, it said that the first half of our distance today is known as the “knee wrecker”. This didn’t fill me with a lot of excitement considering my recent knee pain – with lots of ups and downs it had potential to be a pretty slow walk if I had stabbing pain in my knee with every step. Wanting to prevent this as much as possible, I diagnosed my issue using the internet, and bought some strapping tape at the pharmacy. I was hesitant to expect too much, but it turns out a little sticky tape on my leg was all I needed, and I can now walk downhill without an issue. Magic!! Mum’s toes also seem to be slightly improved, though she did seem happy to change from her shoes into sandals at our halfway point today.

So the walk wasn’t too challenging after all and we made it to Logroño with few problems. At one stage in the first half we passed a food truck, whose owner called out to let us know he had tea and coffee. Looking at all of the varied products he had displayed in his windscreen, I called back that it looked like he had quite an impressive selection. Another voice responded: “Are you from New Zealand?” Of course then we had to go for a chat, and we met a Kiwi couple, Claire and Gareth. Once he said his name, it reminded me that I had been asked early on if I had met Gareth yet, the guy from New Zealand with the big beard. Well, now I have! And both him and Claire are lovely.

We stopped in Viana for a coffee and a snack, and crossed paths with Claire and Gareth again, and were introduced to Marnie, another Kiwi. There’s a whole hoard of us!! We passed Claire and Gareth once again just before entering Logroño, and Marnie is now at the same albergue as us for the night. Also at the same albergue tonight is Pearl who we met at last night’s albergue in Sansol, and Mercedes and Mike who we met at the albergue in Villamayor. It’s like a wee reunion!

Speaking of where we’re staying, it’s a bit of a change from what we’re used to. The albergue is connected to the church, and is run by church volunteers. Rather than having a fixed price, they take donations to cover the costs of the accommodation, dinner, and breakfast. They also don’t turn people away when full – those who arrived after the beds filled up have been put on mattresses on the floor upstairs. Donativos like this are all along the Camino, but I read good things about this one online, and then was also recommended it a couple of days ago by one of the others who is doing the Camino for the second time.

Logroño is one of the bigger towns/cities we pass through on the Camino, with a population of 150000. We had a wander around this afternoon, but there wasn’t much happening, so it didn’t take long.

We’re aiming for 30km tomorrow, let’s see if we’re successful with that! Only 606 kilometres to go…