Day VII: Viana -> Navarette; 14.3mi.

🛏:Buen Camino Albergue; 9€.

🍴:

All day we anticipated trying out a tapas place in Navarette that two close family friends, who completed the Camino two years ago, highly recommended. Upon arrival in the town, we learned that this particular place is closed on Tuesdays. Disappointed, but extremely hungry, we adjusted our plan to a pilgrim dinner at a local hotel. We invited an Australian couple from our Albergue to join us (that we met on our first night and hadn’t seen since) and we sent out a quick message on whatsapp to everyone we’ve met that might be in the town. Thirty minutes later, we were sitting around a table with eleven people from six different countries, laughing and drinking wine as we looked out the window over the region the wine was made in. And I finally got my paella!👌🏼

I spent a good part of the morning walking alongside a kind woman from Germany. We’d met along the trail before, but today was the first chance I had to get to know her. She shared with me that this is her second time doing the Camino and she began opening up about the unique trials and beauties that come with a second go on this trek. She proceeded to talk about a particular city we have yet to reach and how the first time she did the trail she was astounded to learn how many people opted to take a bus through parts of it. “It’s a beautiful town,” she told me. “It has a large industrial area, but that’s a necessary part of what makes the city function. You can’t have one without the other, I don’t understand why someone would want to skip through that even though it’s less romantic. Our lives don’t get to be that way,” she said. It was the most beautiful thing I heard all day.

.. and this was the second most beautiful thing, 🎧:I’m obsessed.