Friday, May 8, 2015

Logrono to Najera



Camino de Santiago sign embedded in the walk


The church in Navarrete 

On the outskirts of the City, I am joined by a thirty-year-old German woman and we walk along together for the whole day. Her name is Katleen and she is from a small community outside of Cologne. Usually when you walk with someone for a whole day, it is very hard not to get into some very intense discussion. She tells me that this is the first time that she had really left the security of her home life. She tells me that since her teenage years she had only dated black men and that initially she had met with much resistance from her family.

As we walk, she keeps asking out loud how she could possibly have agreed to make such a strenuous walk across the top of Spain. As the temperature heats up to almost 30 degrees, along with our conversations about life, our path, and our own histories she moves between a gamut of emotions from laughter to tears. This is what the Camino does to you and again is an example of how easily the physical can affect the emotions.

She tells me that she is happy to have been able to walk with me and thanks me for my "spiritual guidance." That´s funny because I feel that this is more an example of the blind leading the blind. Besides, all I want to do is listen and not direct her path. I barely know where I am going myself. However, I thank her for the compliment.

Accommodation is co-educational and we end up sharing a bed together - in the strictly non-biblical sense, that is! This Refugio has more than one hundred beds in one large room and the extreme heat makes sleeping difficult.

Too much bread.........and wine?


Rioja vineyards

River over Najera

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