Logroño en La Rioja

One day isn´t always like the next on this trail in Northern Spain. The 14 mile hike from Estella to Los Arcos took me across country that, in a way, revealed its history at a glance. The Camino takes you from hilltop to hilltop--sometimes climbing 200 meters (that´s over 600 feet for you conversion deficient). Every small town has its own church--usually built between the 12th and 14th centuries (for those who don´t know, Europe suffered a series of plagues during the 14th and 15th centuries that limited collective building projects). From one particular hill, I could see seven churches, monasteries, or convents situated to overlook the landscape from various points of high advantage. Only three of these were still used or inhabited--the others had generally fallen into disuse after the 18th century. Certainly, the overwhelming influence of the church in a past age was on display. This area is also noted for its active hermit ¨communities¨--I know, that sounds like an oxymoron, but many of them gathered in common locations, but lived apart. Dotting hillsides, are fallen piles of rubble that may have once marked a hermit´s cave--some, a local pointed out, were used as late as the last century by shepherds for shelter. Now, shepherds live in campers with attached tents. Welcome to modernity.

I said not every day is the same--I met my first American on the trip! I was just walking into Los Arcos at the end of my hike (looking forward to photographing a 12th century crusader-style church) when I saw a little commotion at the pilgrim hostel. Three other pilgrims had just helped Christina from Minnesota into town. Poor Christina said that she had been walking along when her knee popped as she stepped from stone to stone. They suggested taking her on to a clinic in Viana (about 8 miles), and this 24-year-old compatriot asked me to ride along to keep her company. On the way, she explained that she graduated from the University of Minnesota (go figure!), and that she wanted to do ¨Something important--you know, really important¨--before entering the business world. The doctor in Viana really couldn´t tell anything from an x-ray and suggested treatment in Logroño, or a flight home. It looks like a tear of the outside, lateral ligament. Christina cried. She couldn´t believe that she´d managed the mountain stage at St. Jean only to be brought down on the plateau. I hugged her--she cried a little more--and then I rolled her wheelchair over to a phone so that she could call her parents.

Today, I walked the last 6.5 miles into Logroño. A big town (130,000) with three great cathedrals. Hope I´m doing something important.