Nájera → Grañon
Distance: 18 miles / 29km
Elevation: +1610ft, -833ft
Not every day on the Camino is a good or easy one, and today was a day that really tested me. I woke up around 6:20am and got ready for the day. I was (once again) the last one out of my room, but still managed to be out the door by 7am. I walked out of the hostel and as soon as I walked hardly ten steps, a taxi driver drove up next to me and told me I was walking in the wrong direction to the route. So I turned around and headed back and found my way back to the way-marked path. It was a pretty steep hill getting out of town, which was tough first thing in the morning.
Thankfully, It was only about 3 miles to the first town we came through. I walked with a friend Liz for most of the way there. At the cafe in town, I stopped and got a coffee, a pain au chocolate and a slice of tortilla. It was more than I normally eat in the mornings, but I was feeling super hungry and I knew I needed to eat something to start off the day.
I ran into my friend Jack from last night that I had dinner with and we chatted for a bit while eating breakfast. There was a cat that we saw that was super skinny and hanging around all the tables outside, begging people for food. I went to the grocery store nearby and bought it a can of cat food, which it was very grateful to get. Eventually, I finished my food, pet the cat some more, then kept walking.
The next stretch wasn’t too bad, and I walked alone for all of it. Before I knew it, I got to Santo Domingo which is the recommended stopping town for the day about 13 miles in. My plan for the day was to get to Santo Domingo and reassess to see how I felt. Going to the next town would’ve brought the total for the day to 18 miles, and I decided to go for it - which kind of ended up being a mistake.
The high for the day was 94°F and the sun was very strong, which made for a very very difficult walk. Especially since the last four miles had no shade. My sunscreen, hat, and sunglasses were lifesaving. Those close to me know I get very grumpy when I get overheated, and although I usually like walking with people to make the time go by faster, I’m quite grateful no one but me had to deal with my bad mood for those last four miles.
Finally around 2:30pm, I arrived at the donativo I’m staying at tonight. A donativo is basically an albergue where you donate whatever you can/are able to and there’s no set price. They’re usually run by parishes or churches. Tonight’s donativo was attached to a monastery which is very cool!
The “beds” are just cots on the floor, and there’s about 20 cots in a room. I got there pretty early so I got my pick of what cot I wanted, and I got one near an outlet. I took a shower and washed my clothes in the shower and then went and hung them up. There was no clothesline at the donativo, so we all had to hang out our clothes up at a nearby school that did have a clothesline. After doing all that, I sat on a park bench in the donativo’s garden and stretched and unwound from the day.
I ran into many familiar faces, and caught up with some people I hadn’t seen in a few days. After a while, I went to the bar about 100 meters away and got a tortilla with a baguette and a red wine. I ran into a friend I had walked with a few days ago, Becca, and sat to eat with her and some of her friends that she had been walking with. It was a very yummy snack, and much needed pick-me-up after the long and treacherous walk this afternoon.
I went and grabbed my laundry once it was dry, and then at 5:30pm, everyone went up to the kitchen to make dinner together. There were so many people that I ended up not being able to help with much since everyone had beat me to it. Some people chopped vegetables, others were washing produce, other people were assembling, there was lots to do but also lots of hands to help. I did help peel some eggs for the salad, even though there were so many people we were almost fighting for something to do.
I chatted with Mark and Becca for a while and then went back down to the garden and found this orange and white cat and I sat with it for a while. At 7pm, there was a pilgrim mass that I went to. It was interesting to sit through - the whole thing was in Spanish but they had a TV with English translations. I’m pretty sure they were just running a live transcript into google translate though, because some of the translations didn’t seem quite right... I don’t know much about Catholicism, but I don’t think the phrase “Oh baby” ever shows up in the Our Father prayer (also known as The Lord's Prayer).
After mass, we had about 15 minutes of free time that I spent petting the cat, and then we all went back to the kitchen and started dinner. There were probably about 40 of us there and it was very impressive how they managed to fit everyone into the modestly sized dining room. Before we ate, we learned a bit about the space we were in. The (now) albergue used to be a space for priests and was turned into an albergue through donations from pilgrims and the community.
Dinner was a potato salad, another salad with eggs and tomatoes, and some pasta. We also had wine, bread, and watermelon as dessert. It was very nice to talk to everyone and get to meet new people and reconnect with familiar faces. After dinner, the hospitaleros created a pretty well run dish-washing, drying, and organizing system where everyone helps out. There were people washing dishes, passing it to others who dried them, and then passing it to others who would bring them back to the kitchen. It was honestly really fascinating to see and be apart of, and it made the clean up process really quick.
After dinner, there was a candlelight singing and reflection, but I was feeling a bit overwhelmed by the day and needed some time to myself to process and reflect on the day. I went to the garden, said hi to the kitty who was eating a can of food (it wasn’t happy to be disturbed), and laid on a bench and journaled for a while.
I then went back to the room, fashioned a “pilgrim pillow” (stuffing some clothes into something that resembles a pillow for the night), and got into “bed” (foam pad on the floor) surrounded by 20 others. This donativo is really such a magical spot, and it’s one of the places where I’ve really felt the Camino spirit most along the way. Even though the journey to get here was hot and exhausting and trying, it was such a wonderful evening and a great experience.
