Estella to Navarrete

Day 7 Estella to Los Arcos (25 kms)

Starting the day with freshly laundered clothes, courtesy of the hotel for a modest charge of €5 euro, we make our way back to the Camino.  Strangely, it doesn’t seem nearly as long as it took to get there last night.  It’s overcast and misty as we climb steeply out of Estella.  This town has a different feel to us…a mish-mash of buildings, new, old and in between, and not much soul. 



It´s wine o´clock!



At the top of the hill we find the Bodega Irache winery, and set in the wall, is a fountain dispensing water and red wine!  We stop for a taste – as we can’t see the sun, we have no idea whether or not it is over the yard arm!! – and it’s not a bad drop…the wine was nice too!

We pass through the village of Irache where we see the first camping ground of our trip, and then pleasant walking through oak forest for quite a few kms, to the village of Azqueta.

Into the vineyards and we climb steeply again, this time to the hilltop village of Villamayor where there is a cistern (shallow pool with font, said to date back to Islamic Spain), but the water quality is questionable.  We do, however, fill our water bottles at the town square.  Elevenses today are taken on a stone wall overlooking the way ahead in the company of Gunther and Hilde from Germany.  We keep meeting them along the way – their Spanish equals ours, but their English is much better than our German…hence we get along nicely!

More vines as we undulate towards the road where we meet Mary and Maggie who have stopped at a font under the trees for lunch.

Fortunately, the sun has remained behind the clouds up to this point because once we left the oak forest, there has been no shade…a real problem in summer, we think.  As we walk along a gravel road, at about 1.00 pm, the sun comes out and it becomes quite hot again.  On with the sunscreen, have another drink, and trudge on.

We meet a group of French tourists, complete with a local guide, resting in a small pine plantation, the first shade of the day.  They are on a tour of Spain and are walking one section of the Camino as part of this tour.  We cross a small footbridge back onto the main road, pass through a cutting, and Los Arcos appears just below, seemingly out of nowhere.

We stop at a shelter where we decide to purchase a Coke from the vending machine.  John notices you can also get Camino shells (*) from the same machine.  We scrape together some coin, and the process begins, much to the amusement of several onlookers.  He puts in some coins, presses some buttons, and ends up with 2 shells, 2 cokes, a chocolate bar he didn’t press the button for, and 10 cents change that he wasn’t entitled to!!

(*)Very briefly, the legend of the scallop shell and its rather spurious connection with the Camino…St James attends a pagan wedding where the bridegroom and his horse disappear into the sea.  St James saves them from drowning, and when they surface, they are covered with scallop shells.  Because of this and a couple of other “connections,” pilgrims now carry the shell on their pack.

While all this was going on, Elaine is sitting outside.  A young man gets off his bicycle, walks past, points to the bell on her walking pole and says, “Fuji-san!”  She says it is from Mt Fuji and he tells her he is Brazilian but Japan is his home country.  She tells him that just this morning she has lost the bell from her other pole.  He goes to his bike bag and returns with a Japanese coin which he gives her to replace the lost bell!!  She now has it firmly attached and will treasure it.

Los Arcos is really just one long narrow main street leading to Plaza Santa Maria along which are many albergues and even more peregrinos.  We get our Credentiale stamped at the Albergue Austria and find our hotel in a nearby plaza.

We eat each night at an establishment offering Menu de Peregrino.  Choices vary as does quantity, quality and price.  So far we have managed somewhere between €8.50 and €12 for 3 courses, bread, and vino/water – the most expensive not necessarily being the best – which has fitted into our daily budget quite nicely.  Tonight John orders Natillas, thinking it might be a tart of some sort.   Surprisingly, it came in a lovely ceramic crock and was, in fact, runny custard! 

Day 8 Los Arcos to Viana (19 kms)

Overcast, misty and humid as we start the day with a walk through the village, across the stone bridge and then the usual steady climb.  Today looks like being an ‘ups and downs’ day, most of the ‘ups’ being on reasonably new stone pathways – sort of like the Camino version of Tasmanian boardwalks.  A cluster of cairns alongside the track is more Asian than European, but we add a stone anyway.  Another village, Sansol, wrapped around a hill, but no vipers this time.  Don’t know whether they start at the top of these places and build down or the other way around…but probably start with the Cathedral which is ALWAYS at the top!  Another small village, Torres del Rio is tucked away in the shadows of the hill and the bar here is alive with peregrinos having breakfast. 



Stone shelter



A small chapel is on the side of the track – built to commemorate the appearance of the Virgin of Le Puy.  Also along the way we see small, square, stone ‘shelters’ the purpose of which we are not quite sure…maybe for shepherds in bad weather?  We are now descending in to “Barranco Mataburros”…the ‘donkey-killing ditch’...so you can imagine how steep it is!!  And an appropriate place to have lunch, boiling the billy as we sit on a low stone wall which surrounds a small vineyard.  Private garden plots, mostly veggies, line the trail, as well as wild blackberries, fig, olive and almond trees.  In season, you could do quite well eating off the land.  At the moment, blackberries and almonds are good, figs have a way to go and olives are still very green. 

We are surviving the Camino better than some – we see bloody toes, blisters which require the wearing of sandals or flip-flops, heavily strapped knees and ankles causing painful gaits and heavy reliance on poles.  We enter Viana on a trail adjacent to the main road and after checking in to our hotel, feel the need for refreshment, so join our Dutch friends – 3 chaps walking for a week before returning home to convince their wives to join them next year – in a beer and cider. 



Cathedral



The Cathedral at Viana is small but awash with gold behind the altar with sculptured figures of the saints in alcoves from floor to ceiling.  Just behind our hotel is the ruin of another church, still with some frescoes visible and very old foundations giving a very good idea of what the original building was all about.

We need a couple of supermarket things but must wait until after 6pm, which is when the shops open!  Only the bars open during the day and everything else, including the shoe shop, the clothing shops and the supermarkets are open from 6 – 9, which is when the people come out to play. Tonight we have our Last Supper with Mary and Maggie – they pull out at Logrono tomorrow, but we are walking on so will not see them in the morning before we leave. 

Day 9 Viana to Navarette (23kms)

7.40am start today, just after first light.  We enjoy the sunrise on our very flat, easy walk to Logrono…not Lasagne, as one of our party was wont to call it!...and we enjoy some respite from the previous days of rolling undulations.  We pass from the region of Navarra to La Rioja, and immediately notice an increase in the intensity of vineyards – this being the premier wine region of Spain.  A wetland provides nothing in the way of birdlife as it is almost dry, one of the downsides of walking at the end of a hot summer. 

On our way down the hill into Logrono, we come across a man standing outside his house who stamps our Credentiales.  Possibly his mum, the senora, offers cups of tea and coffee for any donation.  She also has souvenirs which are of interest to the French and Americanos, while we show more interest in the dogs which are kennelled all about the casa.  He tells us the geneology of the 8 dogs, two of which are showing signs of disability brought on by age, and we finally make our escape and continue into Logrono.

The waymarking of the Camino into the city is fantastic and as we walk along the river, following the scallop shells embedded into the pavement, we come to the Officina de la Peregrinos with a toilet!  You may wonder why this is noteworthy…public toilets are very few and far between on the Camino, and sometimes so are the trees!  The city itself is quite interesting, and we slow down to enjoy the comings and goings of city life. 

The Camino out of Logrono passes through the city gardens for some way, albeit on the first of 6 kms of concrete pathway – not great for the feet, but easy walking.  At the end of the concrete is the Pantano de la Grajera, a water storage.  We lunch with the squirrels, which are too nifty to allow a photo, at tables and seats under the pines just short of the dam wall.  As we pack up, the rain begins, necessitating the wearing of rain jackets for the next couple of kms.  Fortunately we are able to remove them as we begin to climb and the humidity increases.

Vineyards as far as the eye can see and gas guns are used to ‘scare’ the sparrows and grouse away from the ripening grapes, but they obviously haven’t told the birds because the sparrows just fly to the next row of vines and the grouse duck in under where they can’t be seen – for the moment!  At a turn in the track, a huge silhouette of a bull fills the sky…no longer in use as an advertising medium but retained for its tourist value.  Along the side of the track runs a cyclone fence – pilgrims use this to place crosses made from grass, sticks, plastic bits and pieces, nails, etc. woven or stuck into the wire mesh.

Almost into Navarrete we meet a flock of sheep and goats with their shepherd and his two dogs.  The shepherd wanders along in front with the dogs at his heel and the sheep and goats follow, stopping if they have time to climb on a stone wall to eat the vines, or roses, or whatever from gardens, and watching to make sure they are not left behind.  We join the procession for the next kilometre or so, watching carefully where we put our feet.



´Honeymoon suite?´



Our accommodation, right on the Camino, is a pension run by 2 hombres.  Beautifully restored and furnished with many historical relics displayed around the entry area, we have a most comfortable night, after having a ‘Commonwealth’ dinner with Kiwi Lisa, and Donna and Lauren from Canada in the Café Los Arcos.