Day 9 – Navarette to Azofra

Footnote from yesterday.

When I left you I was writing yesterdays piece.

After we left the Internet place we carried on drinking. Alan was so delighted with his new t-shirt that he made sure all in town new – a slightly smaller version of the ´Tango man´.

Met this guy Jim, another Irish person. We had dinner with him that evening and polished off another couple of bottle of wine  before crashing around 10.

When you are staying in the refuges / albergues they shut at 10pm. You aint back by then you get locked out.

Left Navarette at 7am. A little hungover but not bad. Still dark. Alan still wearing his bright orange t-shirt which is in this instance no such bad thing. Being so bright the cars can see him a mile off, even in the dark!

There are two routes to Najera the main town we go through today, a straight one and one that goes via Ventosa (3km detour). We must make sure we dont go anywhere near Ventosa!!.

Unfortunaltely the map we have is kinda out of date for this stage as a bloody great big motorway has been built in the last year obliterating the original trail.

Okay we´ll just follow the motorway we thought. This was fine until some kind hearted local explained that we were on the wrong road and should go left. Alas we did. This was the road to Ventosa. The one we had been trying to avoid!!. I was not amused. We also had the company of a wee middle aged Japanese lady who was also not to pleased.

Fortunately after a 500m trek up this road we found a path that led us back to the motorway and lo and behold the straight path we wanted.

Around 11am we got to Najera. Sad to say the first place we have come to where you wouldn´t want to stay. Al reckoned it was a bit like going through Tower Hamlets (London). Nuff said.

After a pit stop for food, we left. By 12 we reached Azofra.

I should mention that for the whole of todays route we were surrounded by Vineyards. Field after field of grapes. They taste fantastic! You´d never eat another bunch of grapes out of Morrisons again.

And what a refuge at Azofra. Newly built and all rooms have twin beds. No sharing with 90 other people. We did our usual routine – wash, then did our other usual routine – drink, eat.

5pm – After siesta. Getting used to sleeping in the afternoon. Bit like Friday afternoon at work!

As there are only 2 bars in town and there´s only 10m between them we went on a mini pub crawl. Well actually we didn´t get passed the first one. As this was the first hight of Champions League fitba´we stayed in the one with the bigger telly. tonight we´d get Real v Werder Bremen. As most of the locals were staunch Barcelona fans we were all German for the night. Nice to see these things dont change from country to country.

The only issue we had to deal with was that the games kick off here at 8.45pm and the bloody refuge closes at 10pm. We´d only get the first half. Hmmm……

There´s got to be a way……

At half time i went back to the refuge and pleaded in my best Spanish to let us watch the rest of the game in the pub. The lovely senora recognised my plight. He´s fat and red, let him watch it. She showed me how to open the gate from the outside so we could let ourselves back in. Result!

Well yes and no. Real won 2-1, the locals were miserable and crying in their Rioja. We however got back in the refuge.

Tomorrow is Barcelona. Hopefully we can repeat.