What town is this?

They are starting to blur, like the days. I´ve been thinking it´s Saturday all day today, but it´s not...it´s Sunday. Doesn´t really matter out here.

I´m in a tiny village called Azofra, just outside of Najera, about 70 miles from Burgos. You all know where that is, right?

Had a stupid, stupid day yesterday and walked 40 kilometers. That´s like 25 miles or something insane like that. I´ve been just wanting to move these last couple of days and so did 30 kms the day before. At any rate, the 40 nearly killed me, but I couldn´t stop as there were no good camping places and I needed to get to the next town.

When I got there I discovered that the alburgue was full and so I had to pace around the town with my pack and look for somewhere to sleep. Don´t try this at home. Or abroad. I haven´t worked myself out that bad in awhile. And it´s not like I didn´t recover, but when you are that kind of haggard, you can make stupid mistakes like lose your wallet or your passport or go home with the first person who asks if you need a place to stay. This is okay when you are in the middle of the countryside (for some reason, I think), but not so good in a city.

I stumbled into an elegant hotel looking anything but, and the kindly barkeep told me their cheapest room was 100 euros. Mmmmm, no thanks. But she did direct me down the street to a place.

I found it and a character standing outside and I asked him in my worst possible Spanish if they had any rooms. He actually gave me the "once over," and said, "¿solo?"

"Si, para una solo."

And then he looked up and down the street, nodded his head and said, "vamos."

It all felt very cloak and dagger. And then I remembered that I just saw a group of older, less worn looking pilgrims just leaving him, and he didn´t let them in, so I felt sort of good about looking seedy enough to be let into this place.

And it turned out to be not seedy at all. I was just the right kind of people I suppose. I got a room, dinner and breakfast for 25 euros. My room was tiny, but it had a sink and a tv. There was a shared bath down the hall which I immediately went to and drew the hottest bath I could muster and soaked my aching feet, calves and shoulders.

I mean really, to treat my poor body this way after how good it´s been to me this past year. Criminal. So I tried to repair it the best way I knew how. I did a little self-massage and had some calcium-magnesium. And then, even though I didn´t want to, I went downstairs (ouch) for dinner.

When I got into town I was so depleted that I went to the first shop I found and bought an orange soda, a chocolate croissant and two bananas and gobbled them all down like...you know that scene in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (gene wilder version) when Charlie gets to eat a chocolate bar with some money he found in the street? The way he hoovers that thing down? That´s how I ate this stuff. In the shop. Causing the shopkeeper to pointedly raise his eyebrows at me. Didn´t care. I never travel without sustenance. I don´t know what was wrong with me yesterday.

Anyway, I hobbled down the stairs to dinner (a more pathetic sight you will never see) and tried to choose something that would do some good. It was another one of those "menu of the day" things where you could choose from 4 or 5 dishes for your first and second courses.

I chose pasta for energy for the next day, and steak to build back some muscle I very likely damaged. I also got chocolate mousse for dessert because even though I was stupid, I shouldn´t be sent to bed without dessert. C´mon.

After my meal I wobbled back upstairs, watched about 15 seconds of televsion and fell into the deepest sleep I have experienced on this trip and probably didn´t move for the next 9 hours. Twas good. Needed it.

I don´t sleep well in these alburgues as you can well imagine, and I hadn´t really slept at all the night before, couple of hours maybe. So, I was due.

Anyway, I took it easy on myself today. Only walked about 17 kms. Slowly. My body was surprisingly unsore and carried me well. It´s so good.

I´m in a pleasant little albuerge, sharing a room with one other person, a lovely woman from Dublin. And I´ll be keeping a fairly mellow pace for the next three or four days until I reach Burgos where I will be taking a day off.

Anyway, need to deal with my wet clothes now, take a shower and get ready for dinner. I still love being out here, walking. I walked all day through grape vines, as this is the premier wine-growing region of Spain. And no, I won´t be sampling any of that. Oh, check this out, there was even a free "wine font" yesterday. Seriously, like all the water fonts along the way, this one distributed wine. Can you imagine?
I´ll show you a picture of it when I get the next opportunity.

Love you guys...think of you ALL the time.