Camino de Santiago
Before we start on today, here’s a few more pics and stories from last night.
When we stayed in Estella, we had a roommate named Mario. A larger than life Austrian (his phone chimes with the Mario game coin drop sound). 5 big boys in a small room made for good conversation, and little privacy. Throughout the Camino we kept running into Mario. During one boring stretch, Drew and I decided to name all the people we met that we could remember their names. We came up with 34 total. Then when we got to Los Arcos and had some beers in the square, in walks Mario, and the square erupts in Mario! Mario! (Norm on Cheers has nothing on him). Mario joined our table and when we asked if he really knew everyone here, he looked around, and said “Maybe not those two”. Amazing. So we had a nice dinner at our Alburgue, only to have Mario walk through one of the large windows to join us, and he wasn’t even staying there! There’s a large Whats App group of Camino walkers, and they all call him “The Mayor of the Camino”
Drew: One note about Los Arcos that’s cool. It was the site of a three-way battle between the kingdoms of Aragón, Navarra, and Castile. The Navarrans (Navarrese? Navarreños?) won the fight, because they had some really good archers. In thanks, the King named the town Los Arcos. Technically the word means arches, not archers, but it’s a neat story anyway.
This morning the plan was to leave Los Arcos and head to Logrono 18.5 miles away.
As soon as we got out of the Albergue (cocoa crispies with warm milk, toast and jelly but no butter $3.50) it started to sprinkle which then turned into rain
We reached Torres del Rio in about 5 miles (3 of it in the rain) and stopped at the first cafe we found… as did most other pilgrims. If there was not room for a group of three, they just split up and joined other tables who might have one seat free, etc. In fact that happens really at every meal… we are all in this together, and no one is a stranger. Anyway, coffee con leche went down swell as did a tortilla. Tortilla’s here are very similar to a quiche, and all bars and cafes offer them. usually with potatoes in them, or ham and cheese if you want. Always good though.
The rain stopped and we walked further into town to the Church of the Santo Sepulchro built in 1160. (Yes the 12th century must have been a whirlwind of building on the Camino!). Very open, with a cool ceiling and again, original paint on some of the sculptures. Check out the red blood on the ones mouth.
As we walked, We passed Alain (Frenchman from last night) who was peeing off the side of the trail but gave us a really hearty Bonjour! Which, to be honest was pretty odd. He must have passed us again while we were in the cafe, because we caught up with him again later on the trail. As we came up behind him, Drew and I broke into the few words of the La Marseillaise (the French national anthem) that we knew which brought a thumbs up from him as we passed.
A gentleman from Amsterdam, Armando, walked all the way from there to Santiago (crazy amount of miles) and then a few months later opened a food truck, which he sometimes sleeps in.
We bought some fresh squeezed OJ from him, and loved listening to his take on life, about doing what you love. He named his “food truck” Rosa’s Place, after his cat. Alain again caught up to us, and I asked to help us learn the rest of the national anthem we did not know, but after repeated attempts he admitted he did not know them either!
After varying start times, we all met up in Viana, a super cool old town with great ruins at the the end of the street. Some nice women we had seen working a food truck days ago, were now working in a cafe and they talked us into strawberry banana smoothies for lunch. Not bad! They also agreed to watch our back packs as we explored the town,and I bought them some pastries to say thanks.
We left the region of Navarre, and entered La Rioja… land of wines and grapes. We didn’t try to eat any, but this must be close to harvesting time!
Ya gotta love a good church ruin. This one was from the 13th century in Viana and you can see the massive nave columns (im standing on one) that originally supported the roof.
Drew again. Dad and I decided to skip the rest of the walk into Logroño because the hotel we are staying at is so far out of the way (everything is booked up for the wine festival, a big deal here apparently) so we caught a cab. After we checked in to Meson Pepa (a trucker hotel if I ever did see one) I saw on google that AK Interactive is headquartered here. They’re a big name in the miniature painting industry for their special diorama effects like rust, water, grime, dust, etc. ANNDDD they have a ‘history of model making’ museum, not 20 minute’s walk from our hotel. So of course I convince Andy to go with me.
Well, getting there was an adventure. Since our hotel is in an industrial part of town and not really walkable, google maps was gonna take us along the shoulder of a somewhat busy road. As we set out we felt it prudent to ask two truckers (I assume, they were smoking a wearing high-vis vests) if it was safe to walk there. I showed them the map and gave my best attempt at Spanish, but it was a bit of a long discussion. The woman got it pretty quick and said “Yeah you can walk” in Spanish but her older male companion said “no no no what you wanna do is…” something unintelligible. So we had to discuss with him his different route originally pointing to a completely different location, but once he got it he gave us even more unintelligible directions. Eventually he had to draw us a map so I loaned him a page from my journal. He suggested that instead of going along the road, we go UNDER the road and across the train tracks. So that’s what we did. It was only a little bit sketchy and we ended up where wanted to be after all. BUT THEN, tragedy struck. The damn museum was closed! Even though the sign said it was open till 7 on Fridays. I was bummed and we tried knocking and calling and just before we gave up dad knocked one more time and sure enough, the door magically opened and a confused, heavily tattooed woman stuck her head out. I asked “podemos ver el Museo?” And she said yeah of course. Turns out she had been cleaning and simply hadn’t unlocked the door yet. Things move slowly in Spain. We had a great time looking at the cool models, including Egyptian toys, wooden boats from the Vikings, and some Paleolithic figurines which were kinda just rocks that looked vaguely humanoid but still cool. Then it moved on through the modern era, including some molds that were the exact same ones Dad and I had used to make lead soldiers when I was a kid. Super cool.
We took a taxi back to the hotel because the rain had really kicked up by then, and now we’re relaxing before dinner. We may be the only tourists eating in the diner downstairs. Hopefully my Spanish is up to the task. I foresee an early night tonight as we are all beat to hell. Drewseph, out.