Day 13: Granon to Belorado

Leaving the Rioja region!

Taking a rest, only 500km to Santiago ;P

On the road again.

Arriving in Belorado. Check out all the storks´ nests on top of the church.

   
Our bunks in the albergue, we are sharing a room with a German couple who doesn´t speak English. On the bright side, a bunch of our friends are also staying here! TWO MORE GOOD THINGS ACTUALLY! The man who snored like a mac truck last night in the bell tower just checked in, but he isnt in our room! And there is a 16 year old guy from Seattle here too :). These are the pain meds that have been helping us through the day.
There are also bunnies and chicken running around the courtyard, perfect! :D

Not a bad view for an 8 euro room :)

Heading out to dinner, and I am not sure when I will have wifi again. So goodbye for now!

OOH! We also saw a guy about to put ten euro into the pay phone to call his girlfriend in the Congo, so we lent him our skype, which is about a cent a minute :) little things like that make pilgrims happy.

Day 12: Azofra to Grañon

  
A picture before and after sunrise! And no, the picture on the right was not photoshopped (I dont have the time to anyway)

Me (oddly pointing) at my buff. We both used it to cover our noses to protect ourselves from the nasty manure smell.

Our spanish Pepe (not that he could ever be replaced, but...) Dont they look alike!

  

Lighting a candle for all of the people who sent along intentions with mom (You know who you are) in the Cathedral of Santo Domingo de la Calzada. On the right is a picture of the 2 chickens that are kept in the church as a tradition since the 1400s, theres a wonderful camino legend that I am too hungry and tired to tell about, but you can google it. ;)

We must be pretty desperate that we would air out/rest our feet on the side of the street.

A view with four tiny bikers in the distance. Everytime they whizz past us we wish them a flat tire >:(

  

Staying in the bell tower of the church in Grañon. I had my first camino miracle here! One of the volunteers was from Japan, and she had just made a plate of sushi! The day before I had told mom that I wanted sushi, and she had told me it would take a miracle to get it :)

Two pictures in one to make a panarama of the very top of the bell tower where we hand washed and dried our laundry.

A view from one of the windows in the tower.
  

A view of the pilgrim dinner from the loft where we slept.

SHOUT OUT TO ALL MY BALDWIN FRIENDS!

Thank you guys sooooo much for reading (even if you guys havent figured out how to comment lol). I miss you guys so much and it really helps me keep going knowing that you have my back and that you are rooting for me :) Love you! <3

Days 10 and 11: Logroño to Ventosa to Azofra

(Logroño)
A picture of what we think was an allergic reaction from the pain gels and the sun. I couldnt rub the gel on  my calfs any more, unless I wanted the sunburn-like rash to come back :(
It Is totally gone now :) thank goodness! I just have to be very careful not to put the gel anywhere that is exposed to the sun.

      (ventosa)

Boy was I happy to see these two!

(Road to Azofra)
The very long and hot road to Azofra. My classic "I´m tired" pose.

      (Azofra)

FINALLY! A picture of the road to the albergue, and of mom´s (very swollen, she added) feet in the cold foot fountain in the courtyard of the albergue. Thank goodness I brough a bathing suit :) I managed to take a dip (to the amusement of the 15 other people soaking their feet) in about a foot and a half of water.

       (Azofra)

Trying out the leg massage chair, it kind of reminded me of a lemon juicer haha. It did feel really good though :). One of our friends from Texas was a chef, and he cooked us an AMAZING dinner.

It was so incredibly hot that we decided to make good use of our headlamps and get up before sunrise to escape the heat.

Day 9, leaving Logroño

Please know that there is a reason for my exciting pose. If you look EXTREMELY closely you MIGHT notice that my life in a bag has been replaced with a small daypack with water and snacks. Mom and I were both very happy to have a day without extra pressure on our knees!

A church on the way out of Logroño

Pictures from the lake beside the path.                What appear to be black lumps in the water

                                                                     are actually some of the biggest fish I have ever seen in my life!

Why yes, yes that is a squirrel eating a cookie out of my hand. We were walking past a man on a bench in a wooded area when we noticed something fluffy on the back of the bench. The man informed us that this wild squirrel was tame, and gave me some cookies to feed it. Easily the best part of the day!

Views from the Rioja

Standing outside the 11th century cemetery. I cooled off in the sprinklers and we met up with our two friends from Sweden.

A great day! Thank you again for reading and commenting :)


Laura: I think you have to make a blogger account to comment ;) Love you chica, have fun at MacGuffin! Say hi to everyone for me!

Logroño

After we got into Logroño (by bus :) ) we walked to the municipal albergue. We were the first people to arrive, and we quickly noticed how closely packed the beds were. The three other bunk beds were given to smelly, sweaty men. Mom said it smelled worse than any locker room she´d ever smelled, and we checked into an inexpensive hotel around the corner. THANK GOODNESS! We then walked the short distance back to the albergue to wait outside to greet our friends when they arrived. WE ended up running into ALL of our friends, and a few decided to stay at the same hotel as us.

Later, we all met up to go to Calle Laurel (a street famous for its tapas bars) for dinner

We met a group of Irish women who we had seen a bunch of times on the trail. They all get together every year to do a week of the camino from where they last left off.

Mom and Szusza from Hungary, she walks at the same pace as us :)

A picture of us with Andy from Ireland. This was his last day before heading to camp in the Pyrenees.

Day 7 and 8

Leaving Casa Magica, and we were in a LOT of pain. We already knew we weren´t going to make it to our final destination. Mom is currently hobbling along with knee braces, biofreeze and pain cream. It made me very happy to see yet another extremely well behaved Spanish dog.

Entering Estella, another beautiful church

Stopped to have breakfast, and I found my liquid magic. It is literally what has brought me to the finish the past three days

A vinyard at Irache

The famous wine and water fountain, water on the right and wine on the left. It is free for pilgrims and it promises that they will make it to Santiago if they drink some. There is a webcam, so we woke up dad at 2 am so he could log on to see us. We waited for fifteen minutes in the freezing cold wind, only to find out that it was frozen on a picture from yesterday :(

More views on the way to monjardin

Lunch at a small bar by the Albergue. Only in Spain would you find cheeseburger flavored chips that ACTUALLY taste like cheeseburgers.

Entrance to the albergue and the swings outside. This was probably our most trying night of the camino. I think even mom wanted to go home, not only were her knees feeling bad, but we both felt sick. It might have been because we didnt have enough salt that day. Mom had someone look at her knees and they told her to take a day off entirely from walking, so......

We took a bus the next morning with about six other limping pilgrims! All waiting for the bus together. New friends (a couple who met on the camino) from italy and our friend Bob, a highschool math teacher from Canada. The girl from italy is the lead in Mama Mia in Rome!

Dont worry about us! We rested the whole day here in Logroño, and are feeling better and looking forward to walking again tomorrow :) Glad this was the day we werent walking with our friends from texas, we heard through the Camino Grapevine that they encountered a naked flasher in the woods, hope we run into them soon to comfort them and learn what happened. It is VERY nice to have wifi (mom says I get really happy whenever I get it) and thank you guys for reading and commenting. Tomorrow we hope to make it to Najera, but since that is 18 more miles and we are trying to heal we will probably stop at ventosa.


SHOUT OUT TO LAURA!
Thank you for being so supportive! (even if you cant comment haha). You truly are the best friend a girl could have! Thinking about you <3