Knowing that we had quite a way to go today, we began walking just after 6 am. Our hotel was situated at the east side of Logrono, so we only had a short walk until we were outside the city. To start our walk today, we prayed the rosary, which proved to be a particularly relaxing and intentional way to start. From the edge of town, we walked along paved and gravel roads, passed farm after farm, and were passed by several bikers before reaching a highway. At the highway, we made a quick stop at a gas station for Ruth to use the restroom. When we continued on, we passed 3 Santiago pilgrims in a rather short distance. At this stage in our camino, we are still walking in the opposite direction as Santiago, but that camino has several branches and we only overlap with two branches now instead of three as when we walked yesterday - the most popular Santiago branch, Frances, no longer overlaps with us, and thus we expect to see fewer pilgrims. One of the pilgrims we passed today, Xavier, was rather chatty and told us about the pilgrim hostels in our upcoming cities; he even took our picture to remember our meeting :). After departing from Xavier, we passed through one small town, Agoncillo, and shortly reached another, Arrubal, which was our halfway point, where we stopped in the square for a rest and a water refill.
Since we had had such a positive experience with the sandals yesterday, we tried wearing them again today, this time with the addition of our boot insoles for added support. Though things started off well, Greg only lasted a few kilometers before a calf cramp encouraged him to revert back to the boots. Ruth lasted a bit longer, but switched back to boots shortly after passing Arrubal, as a knee ache was becoming a bit of a problem.
From Arrubal, we jointly followed the train tracks and the river until we reached our final destination of Alcanadre. The way was long and comprised mostly of one gravel road after another, passing numerous vineyards and olive groves as we went, but we made it to Alcanadre in time for a substantial lunch. In total we walked 32 km today. Upon entering this small town at the railway station, we found directions to the town hall where we easily got our credential stamped, and the woman there gave us directions to the bar/restaurant where we could have lunch and get the keys to the pilgrim hostel. We found the bar with no problem, had the menu of the day for lunch and headed back to the train station with keys, as the old train station serves as the pilgrim hostel. Inside, the rooms were on the second floor and the accommodations were basic with several rooms with bunkbeds and another room with a couch, but open windows allowed a nice breeze through and it was a good place to sleep after a long day.
We spent some time resting for the afternoon and then made our way back into town in the early evening. At the pharmacy we picked up some medicated cough drops for Ruth's cough, which had gotten progressively worse over the preceding days, and at the grocery store, we picked up bread and meat to make bocadillos for dinner, water for the night and next day, and oranges for a snack on our hike tomorrow. Back at the train station, we enjoyed dinner outside, and then welcomed our hostel-mate, Eduardo, who had biked 75 km that day against the wind. Shortly after that, we settled into our bright red bunkbeds for a good night sleep (that was only occasionally interrupted by passing trains!).
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