Episode Transcript
DAY 8 MORNING BEFORE WALKING
OK, morning of day eight, we're heading to Najera or “Najara”, for the Australians. We’ve got to have the Australian translation of all of our Spanish. Yeah, it'd be terrible, wouldn't it? We can brutalise any language, don't worry. Yeah, we've just stepped out and it's really hot already and it's only 7:25. We've got a 30 kilometer day ahead of us, so we’ve probably got a power on a little bit. Hopefully the breeze picks up a little bit again, like yesterday. Alright, let's go and see how it is.
DAY 8 SUMMARY
Hi everyone, and welcome to Is This The Way, a podcast where we walk the Camino de Santiago. I'm Francesca. And I'm Gaven.
And it's Day Eight. Yes, Day 8: Logrono to Najera. So guidebook says this is a longer day. It recommends 29.6 kilometers. That's pretty much what we did – 29.5 kilometers. It ranks it as a two out of three on its difficulty scale. I'd say it's probably about a 6 out of 10 for us, just because it was a longer day and because when it's hot on a long day, it's easy to run out of water as we found. Yeah, and we ran out of water basically. So we're definitely tired by the end of it, but it was otherwise quite pleasant. It wasn't particularly gruelling or like lots of uphill or anything like that. It was just a pleasant day, just a long walk. It's actually one of the nicest walking days that we had, just because of the scenery that you go through. You walk through a lake and these wetlands that we talk about later through lots of vineyards still, it's just a really lovely walk. And just to quote the guide book, “stroll through a pleasant reservoir park, peak in the Church of Navarette with its spectacular Golden retablo and lounge by the river of Najera” – of where? – “Najara”.
So the guidebook says it'll take 7 to 9 hours. It took us five hours to get to the other end. I think the guidebook tends to have a little bit more padding in its timing. But as we've established, we're pretty brisk walkers, so that's pretty fair. Coming out of Logrono was almost like walking through the parks in Singapore. It was very landscaped and manicured and nice, a path that went along with trees down the sides and everyone going for their morning runs and things. And then we're looking for these wetlands in the middle of wheat fields and things, thinking where the hell is this? And you pop up over a little rise and then there's a massive lake in front of you. I guess that's the wetlands all around that lake. Yeah, it was so beautiful. And we have some animal encounters that we talk about later, but it was really just such a picturesque start to the day.
It was lovely, except that the little cafe next to the lake was closed. So we're really looking forward to sitting by the water and having a coffee in the morning. And I think maybe we ate a packet of mentos. So we definitely always have some snacks with you so that if you're disappointed, you can, like, sit by the lake and eat mentos instead.
Yeah, I think we did as we kept on walking, didn't we? I mean, one of the things that we haven't mentioned is just how much candy you eat over the course of the Camino, because you're just constantly needing that sugar rush. I think I ate more Oreos and during this trip than I have in my entire life. Well, we started very healthy and we were just having our pilgrims meals and things and nothing else and pretty much having water during the day and then the tortillas. That's right, isn't it? The tortillas, which were the like egg omelettes, which is all like reasonably healthy and bread and tapas and things like that. But then you get to the point where you just like low on energy and you need that little bit of a boost. And the things that are always in the shops are Oreos and Mentos and like Haribo and different types of candy. So I think trying to find the candy which doesn't melt and doesn't stick together into big globs, I think we've got a glob of gummy colas at one point. Yeah, it's like a stained-glass window or something where it's all sort of melted together, like start chewing into one end of it. So there's a lump of it, but yeah, that's definitely something that you’ll just end up needing that energy, but you burn it off. So we were eating like teenagers but losing weight.
So we're actually tracking our walk with Runkeeper just to keep track of our distance and times and things, so we could look back at it and just see what we've actually done that day. And it also tracks your calorie burn. And calorie burn, not taking into account the fact that you're carrying a large backpack or anything, or walking in the heat wave. And even then you're burning like 3-4 thousand calories a day pretty easily most days. And as you say with the weather as well, it’s even more extreme. So it's a good way to get fit.
I guess a couple of highlights of the day that we talk about in more detail later. After the lake was this incredible retablo that we had a gaze at. And I highly recommend that you stop in Navarette about halfway through your walk. Which was a nice little stop actually because there was little cafes and things in an alleyway just around the corner from the church where the retablo is. I remember sitting there looking at the shop because they had air conditioners in the shop, just being like, can I just buy one and bring it with me?
Najera itself is interesting town. It's really like 2 personalities. It's split down the middle by a river and on one side is the Old Town, which is lovely like little cobble streets and alleyways and nice little square to sit in. And on the other side is the new town, which is much more modern 80s feeling apartment blocks. Yeah, quite stark, quite industrial feeling. I felt really bad. And I mean absolutely no offense to anyone who lives in Najera, but I was walking along and I thought Gaven was next to me and I turned and was like, “this place is a bit crap”. And then I saw this lady walking her dog. So, I felt really terrible. Yeah, that wasn't the exact wording that was used. I noticed that our podcast has a clean rating, so you'd have to change it to explicit if I actually quote what I said. Regardless, it doesn't matter. I feel terrible because I actually came around to quite liking the town by the end of it. Well, that's because you start walking in basically through an industrial area – I panicked slightly. Yes, apparently you're a bit of a snob.
But once you get down to the Old Town, it's quite nice. And we stayed on the new side and actually the accommodation's much cheaper in the new part of town and was really pleasant. No air conditioning unfortunately, and you'd think these places would have fans. I don't want to keep harping on about it, but if anyone's listening out there, please put fans in the rooms. It makes so much difference. True, but as you say, on the old side of town, on the other side of the river, there's this incredible red rocks. And anyone who's been to Denver, Colorado, the kind of red rocks there just feels so similar. I just find it insane that you can see the same scenery in totally different parts of the world. It makes you feel like they were connected at some point in time. It makes me think of Utah now as well, where we went through Moab. It had the big red rocks, but then the green grass and trees and stuff in contrast as well. It feels a lot like that. So it's actually really dramatic scenery. It's really lovely.
And unfortunately, we didn't have the energy to go, but there's this monastery built into the rock if you walk out of town, which I think if you were spending a bit more time there, not that you would pick that one to have your rest day necessarily, but if you are there for longer, you should definitely try and have a look inside because it's like a monastery built into the caves. And it looked really incredible. So I was a bit gutted that we were just too tired. You can see it from the path when you're walking out of town the next day, but it is like right up on a hill and we're a bit exhausted.
Because one thing that did happen is we ran out of water again. We keep saying we're not going to do it and then we keep doing it. But well, this is, yeah, but this is with like 1/2 liters each in the bladders in our backpack. And I think we even had an overflow bottle. We had an extra plastic bottle just in case because it's easy to quickly refill during the day. And we ran out completely a few kilometers short of Najera. I guess that's just the distance and the heat during the day and there's not that many stops along the way. So we did stop where the retablo was earlier, but that was pretty much it for the day. The rest of the time, you're mostly out in the open and walking.
But then to celebrate, we have walked around 200 kilometers. So it's pretty impressive. 8 days, 200 kilometers. Just think, you've got to listen to us for another 733 kilometers. Nooooo.
Anyway, shall we see how we got on? Yep, let's find out. Great.
DAY 8 AFTERNOON AFTER WALKING
Alright, the end of day eight and here we are in Najera. We haven't got any closer to the correct pronunciation of this town during the day. I think we've end up falling back on the really brutalized Australian pronunciation because it's amusing and Australians are terrible at pronunciation. We have apologized at the start of this for mispronouncing and destroying all words. And I'm sure that will continue throughout. As we drink our rioja wine. I think we'll get better and better. Hopefully over the next few weeks just start to get slightly more used to Spanish language. At least I can drink this. Estrella Galicia. Yeah, I think all my lisps are right.
The start of the day was so lovely and you, like, leave Logrono through this, like incredible park with that massive lake, wonderful forests and everything. It is funny because you're gonna walk through wetlands and you look around and think “where are we going to find wetlands in this?” I'm guessing most of the rest of the year, when it's not bone dry, it's actually quite damp. Yeah, they come up with a little ridge and there's a giant lake there. Yeah. OK. Wetlands.
All the ducks were sleeping there, a load of bunnies around, lots of fish. You befriended a few animals while you were waiting for me. Yeah, we got to the first stop, which is about 6 kilometers, a small cafe in the park. Unfortunately, the cafe looked like I've been closed for a while. But there were two geese outside the cafe door, honking and like tapping on the door with their beaks really noisily. So finally found an animal that needs coffee more than I do in the morning. It's really strange. You sort of wonder what what they're waiting for. I've never seen anything like it before, where they were just kind of basically let me in, let me in for my coffee. I don't know, if I lived there and I couldn't get my coffee in the morning, I'd be annoyed with the cafe as well. You could shout as loudly, I think, as they did. Just about.
While I was waiting, I was kind of sitting on the steps outside. And then a little red squirrel ran up and was sitting about an inch away from me, just staring at me. I didn't even realize, I turn around to get my phone and he ran away a little bit. That's so cute though, because, I mean, he’s definitely not scared of people, though. But also, I've never see them because they've been basically made an endangered species in the UK now because they've been overtaken by the grey squirrels. So it's incredible to see, the color is crazy. I think we should love squirrels regardless of their color. I guess when it destroys your native habitat or whatever, it's probably not great.
We got off to a good start. We got to the first proper coffee stop after our failed attempt at getting coffee. Yeah, and it you know, we’d walked like 13 kilometers without really realizing, just because the scenery was so pleasant. Well, there's a bit of like beside roads and things like that today, but it was very easy walking today. [There’s a nice breeze coming over finally!] Even beside the road, like they've planted flowers down the middle, vibrant red and pink ones, which is very similar to what they do in Singapore, so even those bits were were OK.
But we found this church where if you pay €1.00, it lights up the huge retablo, which again, is this term that we've only just learned. That's basically this all the way up to the top of the ceiling structure. Like a carved wall with all sorts of statues and carvings inlaid with gold and all sorts of things. So we'd heard about it, but I had no idea where to find it. And then this little Abuela / grandmother came over and was ushering us, like, over to the box to put it in. She only had 50c so I guess she was piggybacking on us, but luckily we were able to enjoy that, which is incredible. Probably one of the best ones along the walk. So I was certainly very awe struck by it.
The art is amazing, but the fact that you got a wall covered in gold always makes me wonder about the priorities. Yeah, but I mean these things are hundreds and hundreds of years old. So it makes me worry even more about the priorities at the time when people were living in poverty all around, but you've got a wall of gold and like I said, the art is amazing. But we also know, things are very, very unequal back then, and they still are today. But I mean back then, one of the things that I could imagine, if you went to sit there for an hour and look at that, you'd feel pretty – I don't know, you'd feel something – I’m not quite sure what, but something. I think there'd be quite a range of different feelings from different people depending on their situation. But it is nice to see that these things have been preserved, though, so that we can see them now.
And then the, the scenery changed. So now that we're in this rioja region, let's just go with that. We're going to pick a lane. Yeah, we're gonna go with it. It's like all this red clay. And the vineyards are becoming more and more, I guess, like structured. So they are more commercial looking where they're trying to get the vines to grow along wires and things rather than just stubby little plants, basically, because there's no way for the vines to grow. So it looks like the difference between the small farm holdings and then the more commercial growers in the area. We walked past a few of these big production facilities, and some of them look like they had little wineries attached, but nothing was open. So a bit disappointed by that, unfortunately. We could have really done with one. Like, if anyone ever wants to put one just outside Najera a little bit, maybe like 3 kilometers to three kilometers from town, that's just right to do a tasting, sit in the shade and drink some wine and then stroll into town later in the afternoon. Yeah, but unfortunately we walked straight through there and then entered Nejera… I was a little bit worried when we walked in, a little bit like brutally insulting to someone that we walked past. I don't hide the fact that I'm a little bit posh. And I was a bit concerned that the whole town was gonna be like that. But then it kind of emerges into this lovely little Old Town that we're sitting in right now. It definitely feels a little bit rough and a little bit run down as you come in, but also it's like scorching hot as well. And that doesn't help you to take your time as you walk through and admire things.
it's the most dehydrated we've been so far because we usually take these, we bought these electrolyte tablets. They've been so good. But we had to have a second one today because we just couldn't stop feeling thirsty. Yeah, there's definitely a really good thing to have because I think you just lose too much salt and other things when you're getting really dehydrated, that just water isn't enough. You need to actually replenish those other things as well. Otherwise you're just not hold on to that water. I'm sweating all the time, like even more than I would in Singapore. I think today after the first day I found really tough because it was all uphill and sweating like crazy. And then today would be my second worst day by like an hour in this morning. I was just soaked. But it was it was 30 degrees at 7.30am this morning. It didn't get as high during the day. I think I only got up to about 37. Normally when we start it's about like 18-19 at that time in the morning. Yeah, we missed out on that cool first hour or two.
I'm quite intrigued as to where the weather's going, because we've seen our first tiny wisps of cloud in the sky and there's a sort of percentage chance that there's some rain later in the week. So I'm really intrigued to see what happens – a 45% chance of rain one day. I mean, looking up now, all you see is clear blue sky. The likelihood of that is pretty slim.
One star hotel is actually super pleasant. One of us almost, like, gave up without even looking at the hotel and was like, let's go over to the Old Town and see if there's anywhere else to stay. I wasn't, super enamoured by Najera when I entered it. But actually, it was really fine and the lady was really lovely. That newer side of town, it's kind of looks like it's just on the verge of like a slightly more suburban area though. It has a really cool old building next to it which looks like it's crumbling away. An amazing looking old building. The lady reception is super friendly and welcoming. The room is actually really nice. It's got space, clean, it's got a nice sized bathroom, it's got a nice little balcony with some chairs as well, and it's in the shade, which is great. It's probably actually one of the better rooms that we've had along the way, I think. The only problem is, none of these rooms have fans in them. If they just put a fan in the corner. We're gonna start looking for some of those handheld fans just to carry, because you just need something to move the air a little bit.
That's one thing worth considering if you're ever gonna do this walk. Is to think about whether you want to do it in the middle of summer or not and think about well, normally it might be like high 20s, low 30s. But if there is a heat wave. You can be looking at low 40s, and that's a crazy difference. It's so hot that you literally can't move and you like stick to the sheets. I was just messaging my mom and saying remember when we first moved to Darwin in Australia, and we moved from a temperate climate to a very tropical climate at a very hot time of year. It's like, remember we moved there and you just stick to the sheets and basically peel yourself off as you sit up? Feels like that again. Well, even Singapore back in the 90s was like quite similar in terms of lots of places didn't have proper air conditioning. Like maybe you had a fan, but barely moved the air.
I guess for a lot of people like summer is the best time to go because of like school seasons or holidays or whatever it may be. But I mean, I think if we did it again, we'd probably come late August, September, something like that. I mean, another benefit is all the fruit starting to ripen as well. There's probably a few more things that you can kind of like pinch some, a little bit of something off the tree the way maybe we've seen like figs and cherries and apples and pears and grapes. Probably other things that we haven't noticed as well, a ton of blackberries as well, loads of blackberries, but none of them are ripe yet. I think that when we do a future one that we would probably take the timing a little bit more into account. Because it is just, you know, it means you just can't do anything. Like when you arrive it's so hot. You just have to basically hide in your room until it cools down a little bit. It makes it really weird schedule because we get in every day at around 2ish. Maybe sometimes a bit earlier, sometimes a little bit later, depending on how long the day is, and you literally go and hibernate until 7-7.30, when the temperature starts to drop off, like a typical siesta time. I can understand why, I kind of joke about siestas and things, but actually I totally understand why everyone does it in Spain.
Otherwise I had a couple of interesting thoughts today. I mean, one was, as we were leaving Logrono this morning, literally like a lady wound down her window to shout Buen Camino to us. And it just made me think, this is probably the most friendly, welcoming walk you could possibly take. You can be a solo traveller. There are loads of solo female travellers. There's like loads of rainbow flags everywhere. We've met people who are like transitioning and transitioned and all these sorts of things, and basically there's no one who shouldn't be able to do this walk. I don't think anyone would ever feel unsafe or unwelcome on this walk because everyone has something in common and that's the fact that they're walking the Camino, and that's not a trivial thing to be laughed off. That's a big thing and everyone has that instant bond and all the other things don't really matter so much I think. And I think also the type of person who's doing it is generally a bit more of an open-minded person as well, so we've just spent such a huge variety of people along the way already, and we're not being super social as we go either. We're a little bit more enjoying the peace.But all the people have been lovely, and I think everyone just feels really safe and comfortable. It's just so nice, you bump into people that you know you've met before, and you just say hi all the time. So, and you just say hello to everybody you pass. And people who live in the town say Buen Camino to you say Buen Camino to other people. It's like, very, harmonious kind of environment, which I'm really impressed about.
If anything ever happened. You hurt yourself. You run out of water or anything like that. Literally anyone walking past, we'll stop and make sure you're. And that's a really comforting thing. It's like there is like a strange community to it. With basically no judgment of anyone because everyone's doing it for such diverse reasons. And everyone has that in common. That they're doing this thing regardless of what their reasons are and then what people's different reasons are is actually really interesting. I think it just means anyone who has had the remote inkling to do it. But it's maybe is in two minds about these sorts of things, you should feel really comfortable and go for it. I think you'll only have a, you'll only meet good people along the way.
If you just want an adventure, or you want to challenge, or you want to see some of the countryside rather than just flying from town to town. It's an amazing way to see things where we're literally walking from one side of Spain to the other.
And then I think the other one, we were starting to think about what a meaningful life is because you saw that sign. What did it say? Jesus is, what was that? There's something like written along the way or something like. If you're still looking for the answer to life or something, the answer is Jesus. And I thought, that's cool. I can just stop at this vineyard now. I don't need to walk the rest. No more need for introspection. That's it. Hey, cool. But interestingly, a guy that we met a couple of nights ago basically said exactly that he felt lost. And then he was found with Jesus and these sorts of things. And, as you can probably tell, like, we're not super religious. So we sort of think started to think about what some of the other ingredients might be.
And for a meaningful life in terms of confidence in yourself and being able to spend time by yourself. Because on the Camino, even though we're together, they'll be long periods of time where we're sort of walking alone with their own thoughts and things. So I think being comfortable doing that is really important. Yeah, but when you talk about looking for answers and things, I think a big part of looking for answers is looking for whatever you need to find to be comfortable and happy with yourself. And I think to some degree, we both have that already before we came. So that makes it easier to be comfortable together, whether it's just like us together or whether we're walking kind of by ourselves together. We're not looking for all the answers to everything. So I feel like we've found, at least half of the answers that we need in life when we find each other and you find someone else who's also comfortable with themselves and where they are and what they're doing. No, I agree. And I definitely find meaning in the time I spend alone thinking and contemplating and then the time we spent together and time with family and friends and as you said, everyone has some sort of common ground, and a lot of that is like the experience of the Camino like and attitude of learning and openness and all these sorts of things. And I think that's like a really important component of a meaningful life as well, and definitely a trait that you and I both share. None of this is hugely profound or anything, but it's just nice to start thinking about what's important, reminding ourselves again and again, like, what's important as we go forward. And the importance of cold beer at the end of the day! Yeah, well, simple things can make a huge, huge difference.
So tomorrow we're quite excited because we're staying at a Parador, which is like the notoriously up-market hotel. So very intrigued to see what that's like. And it's only a shortish walk to 20 kilometers or so tomorrow. It will be one of the shorter days after one of the longer ones. But then even the 30 kilometres wasn't bad. Kind of at the end was a little bit rough just because of the heat and because we ran out of water. But otherwise, the walk today was nice. The walk tomorrow is only 20km, so it's pretty short, but there's not many stops along the way. I think we've only got one town tomorrow to stop. So it'll be a coffee stop and then a long walk, I think, in the afternoon. So hopefully ending somewhere air condition, which we. Sounds good. I'm looking forward to it.
OUTRO
Thanks everyone for listening.
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Buen Camino!
