Bright Lights, Big City – Camino Days 8-11
Slipping out of a 12-bunk-bed dorm room at 6am without a light is a fine art, but with minimal rustling we can be on the road under the stars for an hour before the gentle blue awakening in the east behind us starts to chase the stars away. Slowly the shaggy world shakes itself from murky shapes to muted sepia smears to vibrant techni-colour definition. Wool hat comes off, headlamp turns off, down jacket and gloves get stuffed into the pack.
By 9:00 we’re halfway done for the day and having Spanish “tortillas” (potato-egg-onion pie) and hot cocoa for breakfast at a street-side “bar” (café, though some folx are already having beer). This morning (day 8) we could still see the hilltop church we’d slept beneath, and also the sprawling food mecca of Logroño we’d be feasting at in another few hours.
Logroño Wedding and Tapas
If life in small mountain villages is about fresh air and vistas and simple meals, stopping in bigger cities is about indulgence - monstrous meals, cavernous cathedrals, cacophanous crowds. While we wait 90 minutes for the Logroño church hostel to open, we get to witness a wedding, complete with blushing bride arriving in a Rolls Royce, the swankily dressed guests filing into the cathedral with the giant doors closing behind, then afterwards everyone spilling back out to dance in the streets to the music of bagpipe and drum.
Life only gets crazier after that, as the famous tapas bars open. Over 100 on Calle Laurel alone, many serving just one specialty like the garlic mushroom extravaganza we fight our way to the window to order five of. Luckily, the pig-ear pincho’s across the street don’t have quite as big a line-up. Some bars have signs saying they don’t serve bachelor parties - we see atleast five such rowdy groups. Nowhere is there room to extend elbows, so we squeeze our way in and out of bars and tastes and groups of happy, mostly Spanish visitors who truly know how to have a good time. Our hostel closes at 10 but we hear revellers heading home past our window all night, the last ones about 6am.
Santo Domingo Parador
In the next big city of Santo Domingo, we burn some credit card travel points on a fancy “Parador” - one of many historic buildings the government has restored to become luxury hotels (and to preserve their heritage). Ours was a 16th century monastery, and now has suites including a bathtub, a breakfast buffet, and “conjoined” twin beds that are much more intimate than bunk beds with 14 other stinky pilgrims.
Sitting post bubble-bath in plush bathrobes watching “The Way” (the 2010 movie by Martin Sheen that increased the number of Americans on the The Camino by ten-fold - from 3,333 in 2010 to 32,069 Americans completing the pilgrimag in 2023), we make the easy decision to gift our tired bodies an extra rest day. After 9 days and 13,500 feet of climbing over 154 miles, the upcoming quiet roads and rural splendor can wait another day while we refresh and indulge in medieval monastic luxury.
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Currently in...
Philadelphia
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Costa Rica (Monteverde) till Christmas, then Thailand (Chiang Mai), Vietnam (Hoi Ann, Feb-Mar). Please share any sites, people or ideas by email.
Incredible history you’re seeing and experiencing.
We have to pinch ourselves a bit to remember just how amazing it all is, when we’re seeing it everyday.
I’m loving your posts and pics and delighted that you allowed yourselves a day of rest. ❤️