It’s hot 🥵, very, very hot. 32 degrees worth of hotness outside according to Siri. We’re in a decent albergue, private room etc for €40 but there’s no air conditioning and the temperature isn’t scheduled to drop below 30 until 10 o’clock this evening.

We left Logroño around 10:30 this morning after rehashing our discussion with Tom. He’s taking a short series of trains to Sarria tomorrow and then planning to walk at a gentle pace taking as long as he sees fit until he gets to Santiago. It’s 117 km with albergues, restaurants and bars dotted frequently along the path. We had spent the night wondering whether we really should go with him but he was clear this morning that he was perfectly happy to walk by himself and might prefer it given that he really could walk at his own pace. Both his back and knee are playing up so it’s perfectly possible that having got to Sarria he’ll simply catch a bus to Santiago.

Consequently Dorothy and I decided to continue on the Frances, a decision whose wisdom we’re now beginning to question.

In the meantime let’s talk about last night in Logroño.

Dinner was great, trip advisor is simply brilliant; we’ve never eaten so well in Spain before.

We returned to the albergue intending to get a decent night’s sleep. Unfortunately some mechanical device, a fan or more likely an air conditioning unit was attached somewhere in the building to the wall next to my head. The subsonic, regular pattern of somewhat irregular dum-di-dum-dum sounds was absolute torture and didn’t switch off until 5:22 this morning. I tried lying in the bathroom, I wandered around the corridors outside, I tried to sleep on the balcony but nothing worked. The worst night away from home ever.

I finally got to sleep around 7:30 and was up again at 9 to grab some breakfast and say goodbye to Tom. Goodbyes all round and we headed off in one direction whilst Tom headed off in another.

The route out of Logroño was marked with this interesting sculpture.

The route out of the city has these

at regular intervals. The various caminos are nothing if not well signposted with each region specialising in its own sign type. There’s a consistent use of marker posts throughout with distances to Santiago to the nearest metre appearing when you’re within some 200 km or so. It’s always a cause for celebration when the 100 km marker post appears.

We noticed this

as we left the main conurbation behind, again something unique to this region.

Shortly afterwards we came across this little high rise inhabited by our friendly hermaphrodites.

The route passed a large lake and mountain biking area.

We stopped for lunch of bread, avocado and cherry tomatoes. Here’s Dorothy bundled up to protect herself from the blinding sun. This is the first occasion we’ve had to use our nice bottom pads.

We’re deep into Rioja country and the vines are on every bit of available soil.

We passed close to the silhouette of the famous bull

and once over the last hill, Navarette appeared in front of us.

Only 3 km to go but the heat was building inexorably and as my attention wandered to checking that my hat was covering my neck properly, the tarmac underneath my left foot disappeared and a quick twist, half pike followed by a somersault to a perfect landing onto the soft, squishy rucksack ensued. 3 km in blinding heat with two working legs is ok-ish, but with a dodgy left ankle and a dodgier twisted right knee it’s even further especially when it’s uphill. But I’m not one to complain and soldiered on, head held high and eyes fixed firmly on the uneven ground.

The albergue we wanted turned us away with a smile, but thankfully the last albergue in the village had the free room in which we now lie, broiled alive in our skins.

I’ve been holding back just a little. Aw.

We’re coming home.

We’ve booked a train to Bilbao for 11:25 tomorrow, the same first train as Tom it appears. We’ll then head north while he’ll head west. I look forward to seeing his face. The Vueling flight leaves Bilbao at 18:25 on Monday, getting in to Gatwick at 19:10 so we should be home around 10 or so.

It’s simply too hot. We can’t cover the distances we need to in the time that we have and it is simply unpleasant.

However, we’ve managed to achieve the requisite Chardonnay colour as specified by Ioan throughout and Dorothy’s nasty heat rash is now pretty much under control. It’s clear that if these temperatures become the norm, mid 30s with extremes into the mid 40s and above, humanity has some major challenges ahead. Everyone on the Camino is obsessed with carrying enough water and they drink and refill at every opportunity.

The fields are parched, irrigation systems are clearly at full stretch keeping the plants alive. It’s tricky.

We will return but in the spring or preferably the autumn when the grapes are ready and the heat is manageable.

Buen Camino

addendum :

For the sake of our future selves, while it’s all still fresh in our minds the following points need to be made.

We made the correct decision to walk the Norte in preference to the Frances because we were genuinely concerned with Tom surviving the walk up to Orisson in temperatures exceeding 37 degrees and subsequently the steep descent into Roncevalles with temperatures still around 35 degrees. Indeed an Austrian pilgrim died only a few days earlier on the ascent to Orisson. In addition, walking long distances in such heat with a heavy backpack is exhausting and dangerous which means that the walking day has to be severely curtailed leading to short distances and long ennui filled afternoons in stuffy, ever warming rooms with little or no circulation. The decision to switch to the Norte in the light of recent weather patterns was therefore correct.

Damage to Tom’s knee on the first day meant that walking the Norte was no longer possible for him. Consequently, switching back to the Frances as an easier Camino despite the drawbacks was the only logical decision unless we abandoned the whole thing. Subsequent events and the persistence of the extreme temperatures over this part of Spain has meant that now, for us at least, the enjoyment of walking the Frances in no way outweighs the unpleasant experience of trying to do so in these temperatures. It’s too late to try to return to the Norte, we’re too far behind schedule, so the logical option now is to keep at least some of our powder dry for another attempt at a more congenial time of year. Some expensive lessons learned 😞