The heat battle from Logrono to Navarrete

Dear ones,

what a day... I'm sooo exhausted :D

After only running 20.5 km yesterday, I thought I could cover a bit more today. It ended up being 33.4 km.

I simply didn't want to stay overnight in Logroño because the city was too big for me (124,000 inhabitants). And as I realized in Pamplona, I just don't like big cities. At least not for staying overnight and lingering here on the Camino.

Since the next town Navarrete is unfortunately 12.4 km away, it was quite a march. But so far my legs are still doing fine. Let's see how they feel tomorrow :D

The really bad thing about the last 12.4 km today was the incredible heat and intense sun I had to run in. And that from around 12:30 - 4:00 pm. Guys, I'm telling you, it was tough! It hasn't been this hot on the Camino before. I think I drank 2 liters of water just on this last stretch. In between, I even had to use sunscreen again. And that means something for me. My weather app actually predicted rain for today oO.

Anyway, I arrived in Navarrete quite happy and satisfied and I'm staying in a pretty good smaller hostel. Funny enough, I met Hanni and Barbara again here! (Hanni sat next to me on both flights to Biarritz and I met Barbara on the first day of hiking; and we all saw each other at Casa Paderborn in Pamplona as well.) You really constantly meet people you've seen somewhere before :D.

We still had a very social dinner with some of the other pilgrims today. That's where my new motto was born: 'The Camino is my marijuana and ibuprofen is my ecstasy.' :D

But I wanted to briefly tell you about yesterday. That's when I met Paulius from Lithuania. An incredibly nice young man. Who walks about 40 km a day oO. He also told me about a hiking trail in Lithuania that is 100 km long and located on a small island. Paul (as he calls himself) walked these 100 km in just 16 hours :D I can only say crazy!

We had some wonderful conversations over beer, bread, salami, milk from a tetra pack, and lentils from a jar. By the way, Paul had the same idea with his lentils in a jar as I did with my beans in a can :D!

And in the end, we also found out that he had also met my dear Richard from Ireland! How small the Camino is...

Best regards!

Nicole