Day 11: Logroño to Navarrete

Day: April 11th, 2022

Distance: 12.5km/ 7.7 miles

Time: 3 hours (12:30pm-3:30pm)

Typically the Camino is broken up into 33 stages/walking days. Today would have been another 28km day, but we broke it up into 2 days to gradually ease the achilles back into the world of walking.

This morning I still wasn’t feeling 100%. Congestion, coughing, achilles still swollen; I felt like shit to be honest. I struggled with frustration and discouragement about these physical limitations. For the first time I wondered… what if the Achilles continues to flare and I have to stop? I’ve dreamed of this for so long, and I’ve come all this way… what if I can’t finish the damn thing? It’s a humbling place to be. A dark night of the soul moment that knocks you back and makes you question what you’re doing.

Amidst these thoughts, I enjoyed my private airbnb until checkout time. Iris and I met at a coffee shop at noon, and we fueled up before heading out.

It felt good to move, to be on the road again, igniting that flame of perseverance and walking through the fire. Letting it burn. Paulo Coelho sums it up, “Rest a little, but as soon as you can, get up and carry on. Because ever since your goal found out that you were traveling towards it, it has been running to meet you.”

The short 12.5k day wasn’t too bad on the achilles. We arrived to Navarrete around 3:30pm. I took a blissfully hot shower, then laid in my top bunk. Feet up the wall. I closed my eyes. Breathed. Visualized a healthy and healed body. I felt content. The foot was feeling ok too. I feel a turning point in the very near future.

Iris and I went out with a new friend, Kiley, on a quest for cava & dinner. That’s another funny thing about the camino… you just never know who you’re going to end up having a meal with.

We shared our dinner with an old Irish man who lives in Dallas. He bought bottles of wine as we chatted about the people you meet on the Camino, the meaning of life, suffering, regrets of the dying.

Before going home, we stopped inside the church next door. It had the typical stone facade on the outside, but the alter inside was covered in gold leaf. A spectacular and unexpected sight at 10:00pm.

The evening lifted my spirits. The discouragement of the morning felt far away, and I was feeling more hopeful about the journey by the minute.