BEING THE BLESSING

4 September 2023, Camino 3, Day 5

Logrono to Navarette

Today we gave back. We are walking out of Logrono and a young woman caught our attention and was waving toward her car. We thought she meant to give us a ride and we said no thank you and we would kind of kept on walking. Then we got the impression that her car was broken down. There was another couple there and the man was helping to helping her to push her car. So we joined in and helped push her car down the big street onto a smaller street. I guess we didn’t look too old to help push a car.

There are changes along the Camino today’s road is long and paved, which makes it easier to walk. I’ve noticed in the meseta, which is a long dry flat stretch through Spain (some people call it The Skin Cancer Stretch, rest in peace Jimmy Buffett) but we noticed 4 years ago that people had planted young trees along the way to provide shade. Two years ago they were more mature and more trees had been planted. I often wonder if these changes (which I know are meant for the comfort of the pilgrims) do they somehow take away from the camino or should I just look upon it in gratitude and realize that it’s still my walk

I think I wrote about this 4 years ago and have spent a lot of time pondering this question. I think my answer is that I should be grateful for the shade, the smoother paths that have been built and all that the camino provides.

We also had an excellent lunch in Navarette. We found this restaurant 4 years ago and were pleased to see it was open so we made a lunch reservation. Restaurants in Spain are often not open for dinner until 8:00 pm or even later. Lunch is generally served until 3:30 or even 4:00 pm so sometimes it’s easier to get your main meal early in the day and subsist on snacks for dinner.

So we made a reservation at El Figon de Duque.