This morning I saw the guy who had had the luck to sleep on the floor last night. When someone had commented on it last night his reply had been: "I'm young". So this morning I asked him how sleeping on the tiles had been and whether he still felt young. " It was hard " was his reply. I don't think, given his poor English, that he realised what a good reply that was with perfect ambiguity. "But I must not be pay 11 euro" he added. So not having to pay (a decent gesture from Mrs. 'Tranquilo' I thought) made his hard night worth it.
I left the albergue at around 08:00 and was the last to leave. I chose to follow the marked Pilgrim trail through the town, something I have learned is not as easy as it might appear to be. That's because the signs (and in Logorño they are known to be bad) are meant for the walkers and are difficult to see and follow from the road. I was doing fine up to a point. Then the markers had disappeared. That's another problem with following markers; if you miss a turn there's nothing to indicate it except for the fact that you can't see any more markers. And then it's a question of how far you keep going until you admit to yourself that you missed the turn. Which is of course a function of how frequent the markers are and how stubborn you are.
So there I was. Stopped and looking at my (totally inadequate) map. Imagine that you have a map that shows the route from Sydney to Melbourne and you're trying to decide which street to turn at in the suburbs of Goulburn (non-Australians will have to substitute their own equivalent places). You get the idea, it's a question of scale. And then along comes a bike rider. There's a lot of bike riders in Spain, of the kind that go for a 50km sprint during lunch time. He stops and asks 'Camino?' By road or the path? (My Spanish is coping so far). Then he says 'follow me' and he's the lead bicycle for the 500m detour back to where I should have been. 'Buen Camino' he says as he goes on. And that's how it consistently is. People seem to go out of their way to be helpful and welcoming to those on the Camino. Nice.
Later in the day I am stopped on the road to take a photo and have a drink and a bike rider suddenly appears (it's an uphill stretch, I have been going slowly and he's probably a hill climber so he caught up quickly). Everything OK? he asks. Need any help?
Leaving town the path passes by another 'checkpoint'. This one's manned by Marcelino and he's called it the 'ermita del peligrino'. I stop and ask for a stamp in my pilgrim passport. Marcelino has just finished dispensing opinions on the purpose of the Camino to some people in front. He's the type who can sit there all day, day in day out, dealing with all comers. I say, in my best Spanish: Usted es muy amable. He gives me a huge gap-toothed grin (surrounded by a mane of shaggy grey hair) and says: y un poco loco!
No rain today! And even some flat stretches. But the quaint little albergue I decided on a whim to detour to when I'd had enough for the day (at Viloria de la Rioja) is full - not really surprising with only ten beds - so I continue on another 7km to Belorado.
It's sunny and windy so I decide it's washing day at the albergue.
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