Stage Eight - Logrono to Ventosa

17 km

October 14, 2011

It was always a challenge leaving a city in the dark. The yellow arrows were more difficult to spot amongst all the other signage. I spent lots of time on street corners searching for the arrow. Sometimes it could be right in front of me and I wouldn’t see it. Sometimes you just had to keep walking and look at things from a different angle and then you could spot it. But, this was difficult in the dark, with the street lights glistening on the wet streets. Sometimes a local person would point you in the right direction but I rarely trusted to blindly follow a fellow pilgrim. He or she could be making a mistake.

As I left the city and the sun was rising, I passed a lovely lake and met up with two ladies in their 60’s from Switzerland. These two ladies had been walking the Camino since August 8^th,  starting  from Geneva. Amazing!! They looked very fit and tanned.  I recalled seeing them on my first day when I was having lunch with Kim at d’Orisson. They had stayed there that night and told me that the walk over the pass the next day in the wind and rain was very difficult. I was happy I had made the decision to walk the 27 km on the first day.

I walked through the town of Navarete and through wine country today while eating grapes off the vines. They were very yummy. I listened to two of my favourite Canadian boys, on my mp3 player today to keep motivated: Colin James and Sam Roberts. I decided to venture off the Camino by 2 km, and stop at a private albergue in Ventosa. The next municipal albergue was 11 km away and I was not up for another three to four hours of walking. This ended up being another good choice.

It was before 2 pm when I got to Ventosa and the albergue was not open yet. I found a little bar that just happened to be serving some lunch so I ate a huge bowl of pasta and drank 2 beers. I should have been drinking wine as I was in wine country, but the heat prescribed beer.  

Medeival ruins of
Order of San Juan de Arc
12th century pilgrim hospital

The Albergue San Saturino was run by a very nice Danish lady, who was working there and hoping to own an albergue of her own in the near future. The place was very clean and it was all girls in the room.

 

Martina and hospitalaro

This is when I met Karola, from East Germany. She was another pilgrim, about my age, who I had seen at albergues along The Way. She was a slow but steady walker and I noticed she was always sleeping a lot at the end of the day. As I layed out my silk liner and sleeping bag on my bunk, I heard a voice from across the room. “Where are you from?”  “Canada”, I replied. “and you?”  “Germany” (btw, alemania in Spanish) was her reply. “East Germany”. We tried to communicate further but it was of no use. She knew no English and I knew no German. Then along came Gerti and her friend Martina. We were so happy to see each other again. They met Karola and could speak to her, so now we all had someone to go out for dinner with.

I also met Hans that evening. A very nice, somewhat reserved, Swiss gentleman (61). He had walked over 1000 km already and had also started in  August from Geneva. I observed that the Swiss are amazing walkers!

The pilgrim’s dinner was great and there was lots of wine flowing. They all spoke German to each other so I didn’t always know what was going on but Gerti would interpret for me. It was nice all the same to be connecting with some people. Perhaps the physical adjustment was over and now it was time to socialize. Back at the albergue there were a couple of young girls now bunking in the room. We were all saying how nice it was to have all women in the room and then just before lights out, a man showed up and had to sleep in the room with us, and he was a snorer! Oh well. I am thankful for earplugs. This is the place I bought my pretty white pilgrim bandana with yellow scallop shells and Albergue San Saturino written on it. I wore it for the rest of the trip and got lots of nice complements.