Day 8 : Logrono to Najera

Steve : The second 30km day. I was hurting…

Logrono is a pleasant town with a huge park on the outskirts.

We’ve now come far enough to get a better calibration of our physical abilities. I was fine, except for probably the most important part of the walker’s body, the feet.

My trusty Merrells, which have transported me without incident for nearly two years, were producing blisters.  And then blisters on top of the those blisters. I was hurting a lot.

My default position when in physical pain like this is just to knuckle down and go. This is fine when I’m at home in the Scottish hills and I can spend the next day resting up.  But the Camino is relentless and you simply cannot rest up.  If we are to get to Santiago in time for our flights home for J and H’s graduation we have no slack at all in our schedule.  In fact we need to claw a day back somewhere.

At the end of this day we knew that wasn’t going to be possible.  We can do 20-23 km days,  we cannot do 30 km days.  At least not without sufficient rest, and that’s just not possible.

We’ll need to make an alternative plan.

In spite of all the pain it was another beautiful day in the Spanish countryside. Lunch in Navarrete…

Navarrete roofs

..and a climb over Alto San Anton. Then a long descent in Najera, a rather scrappy town by Spanish standards.  But it does have this rather famous landmark.

We trudged into town, absolutely exhausted.  This abandoned sofa next to a yellow ‘go this way’ sign felt like an appropriate metaphor…

The municipal albergue was full so we went private, which was probably a good idea.  Jen had a spot of sun stroke – nothing serious but enough to send her to bed for the evening. We had a room with shower for just the three of us – a rare luxury. No snoring!

Our fellow albergue occupants were a gregarious bunch of South Africans so we sat in the back garden and talked.

H and I dragged ourselves for an evening walk around town, primarily to try and prevent our legs from seizing up.

An early night.  Tomorrow we need a better plan.

Day 8 : Stats

Logrono to Najera

  • Steps 43,974
  • Distance covered, according to Brierley
    • 28.9 km direct, 30.4 km actual walking
    • 586.7 km to go
  • Other Fitbit stats
    • 39.6 km walked (based on 0.9m stride length)
    • 458 ‘active’ minutes
    • 6,002 cals burned