Day 9: Why So Serious?

Day 9

Nájera –> Santo Domingo de la Calzada (21.3 km/13.2 miles)

Ring. Ring. Ring.

I could hear the bells from the monastery in the distance, waking me up 45 minutes before I planned to get up. I laid in bed a bit before forcing myself to get dressed.

Nothing was open in Nájera for breakfast, so I ate half of my Cliff bar for sustenance before making it to the next town in about 5 kilometers. The hike wasn’t too exciting. More of the same, really, with grapevines going on for a while.

Just after 8:15, I arrived in the town of Azorfa. There was a bar dedicated to feeding pilgrims where I ran into some people I had met before but hadn’t seen in a while. They invited me to sit with them, so I did. After we all finished, me, an Australian, and an Irish girl took off toward Santo Domingo.

The weather was rather chilly, and the sun decided it didn’t want to make an entrance today. Not too bad, especially since it didn’t rain. The grapevines ended, but then we were surrounded by wheat.

At one point, we came across a town, Ciruena, or something like that. It was the last town before Santo Domingo, and eerily quiet. There was no one around. No movements on the streets. The people I was with thought zombies were going to pop out. Later, I learned, the town is mostly for rich people who use this town as their weekend home.

We pushed on the final 6 kilometers or so toward our finish. The rocks under our shoes were destroying our feet. Still, we would rather continue on than stop. At around noon, we arrived in the town and checked into the albergue.

After getting clean, we decided to find some food. That was a journey in itself, but while we were sitting and waiting for our food to arrive, talking about dogs, a German lady at the table next to us turned and said, “Why are Americans so loud?” Immediately, the other two were offended. They said they weren’t Americans and we were just excited and having fun. The Germans insisted we were so loud and we had to be mindful of the other people in the street.

Just then, the Spanish women from yesterday passed by. I told them what happened and they said, “We’re Spanish and we talk loud!” To me, it seemed the German lady was someone who just complained a lot because she gave the servers a hard time, too.

My friends were fired up. Now they wanted a drink. They were so furious that someone would have the gall to say that to another person. It’s not like we were screaming. While we were there, we also met two Italian guys and a Spanish guy, too. We talked about our cultures and just had a good time.

The day has been gray and a bit chilly, but nothing uncomfortable. I haven’t seen too much of the city, but there isn’t much to see either. Tonight will be for relaxing, as always, before heading off to our next destination tomorrow. Each day, we get a little closer and closer to our finish.