Logrono to Najaro: Feet!

A couple days ago as I lay on the grass at Los Arcos to get wifi, someone noticed that my feet were covered with flies. "I don't know how you can stand it," he said. I hadn't noticed. Maybe it is because they were so numb, they certainly seem to have become alien bodies at the end of my legs. At the same time I'm spending hours loving them back into being team players.

Today was 30km and was probably the least beautiful stage so far. Logrono's outskirts went on forever, and there were dull stretches along the motorway and past huge vineries.

I walked with Constance as far as Navareta where we stopped for coffee outside its imposing Church. Then as she waited for Jenna, I found myself walking with Tosten, a German guy from Hamburg.

One of the thing pilgrims delight in is taking grapes from the vineyards, and picking walnuts and almonds from the trees. No one seems to mind, and there are regularly grapes left on places for pilgrims to take. Tosten and I share out resources for lunch by an almond tree and crack open the almonds with a stone.

My feet get more sore, and I get slower as the afternoon progresses. Tosten is very patient, as I suggest he cracks on at his own pace, but he refuses. By the time we enter Najera, making our way through apartment blocks, I am hobbling at a snail's pace. A car drives past carrying a girl in the back seat who looks at me as she might look at an abandoned puppy in a kennels.

The hostel, when we eventually get to it, is basic, donation only, and friendly. They're playing Django Reinhart. Normally I shower and wash clothes upon arrival so that things have time to dry, but today I collapse on the bed for an hour. Tosten and I have been talking of cold beer, but I have no energy to go anywhere.

When I have finally showered and washed, I hobble outside to tend to my blisters and am quickly surrounded by friendly Italians and French. The thing about blisters is that everyone has their theories and they are all mutually contradictory. After a few moments I'm feeling light-headed and nauseous, in fact I have a sweat and think I'm going to be sick or faint. I have to try to explain this and I spend the next hour lying on the bench with my feet in the air.

One of the Italians insists on getting Francisco, a Spanish nurse from Cadiz, to come and attend to my blisters. This he does with iodine, and by putting a short length of thread through the six principle blisters, particularly those on the soles of my feet. People continue to talk to me throughout these conversations, one asking, "Were you hoping to go to Santiago?" as if, obviously, I would never make it.

Presently Henry and Bebe (authors of the Danish guide book who have been guardian angels to us so many times) called by and we go for a farewell drink. They have a home in Najera and so they are stopping here. Quite a few people that we have been walking with will stop in the next few days so there are a number of goodbyes to be made. It was good to have a drink with Matthias, Malta, Constanze, and Genna again.