Day 12: Navarrete to Nájera
Leaving Navarrete was a special walk for me alone. We enter and leave places in much the same way. Pilgrims arrive tired, hungry, and thirsty. We look for a place to sleep, sometimes accepting a mattress on the floor, or a mat outside while hoping for a warm dry night. Grateful. Always grateful. We leave in the morning light, sometimes before the light, expecting nothing more than the dirt, gravel, rocky, or paved road beneath our feet.
I walked out of Navarrete for the first time on my second Camino. No crutches or taxi. I photographed my sandalled feet and hiking poles next to a sidewalk shell, and effectively put to rest an unfinished chapter of my 2013 Camino. All I needed now was to walk into Burgos. But that was still one hundred unknown kilometres ahead.
Today was also a day of parting with Camino friends. We walked toward Nájera with that “goodbye” looming over us. So we did what everyone does ahead of an unpleasantry…we ignored it. 
Andrew and I left Navarrete alone, but stopped outside of the Ventosa detour in a rundown public park for treats and some foot rest. The park was overgrown with uncut grass, and overflowing with garbage. Pilgrims tried to use garbage bins, but it had been a very long time since they’d been emptied. It could have been a beautiful spot. The gazebo was new, as were the benches and picnic tables. But the general disrepair of the place felt a bit lonely and unsettling.
As we left for the road, Katy California, Canadian Cas, Canadian Jane, and Ecuador/Canadian David joined us. They, too, avoided the Ventosa detour, and we walked quickly to Nájera under overcast skies. Perfect walking conditions. When we arrived in Nájera, we thought we had arrived elsewhere. Never had we covered such a distance in such record time. Solving the world’s problems while walking really does pass the time. (And maybe world leaders should take more walks together!) Who was it that first suggested “The way is found through walking?” 
After settling in to a funky, shabby-chic albergue that I’d describe as Victorian if I weren’t in Spain, we met up with the Irish. Culture shock alert: we bought a 6-pack of beer for 3 euros, and paid 2.60 euros to get into the municipal pool and drink our beer surrounded by families doing the same. (Again…I’m not judging.)
We dried off, changed clothes and met our Irish friends for one last tapas fest. It was a funny, sad feast. But we weren’t allowed to say good-bye. For as Sue-from-Belfast warned me hours before, “The Irish don’t say good-bye.” Now, along the Camino, pilgrims come in and out of your life. They walk fast, slow, and injured. They stop to tour sites and cities. They dawdle, sleep on hay bales, curl up in church shade and on church steps. And after days pass, so-and-so from so-and-so rejoins, catches up or slows down. So I say, “See you along the path.” And we will. And we do. And it’s much truer than good-bye. Let’s face it. There is only one final good-bye.
So after tapas were done, our 10:00 pm curfew loomed. We hugged as only the Irish can hug, long and lovely, heartfelt and warm with love.
The Camino we all walk extends beyond Spain. So, Connor and Liz, “See you along the path.” And we will.

¡Ultreia!
~Penny