28.7km

I start walking at 7.30am, down straight roads and city parks. It’s a big city, so it’s almost 8.30am when I leave the city limits. The yellow lights of the city turn off as sunset approaches. The skies are cloudy and dusty pink.

Today feels more like a “winter Camino”. There’s fog so you can’t see distant mountains clearly. I walk along a straight grey park path. In the distance on my left there is a murmuration of a flock of birds, and I pause to enjoy the phenomenon.

I reach a lake with ducks, and also spy a wild rabbit in the bushes below the walkway. There’s a carpark entrance here, and feeling the need, it occurs to me that a toilet should be somewhere. I find it soon enough, and enjoy the sweet relief of a WC.

I reconnect with Areum and Ji Sung after the lake. It’s still cold after sunrise today, and I have the sniffles. The winter clothing (puffy, beanie, gloves) remain on.

Along a path parallel to a highway, crosses made out of branches are fixed into a wire fence. Various batches of mountain bikers pass us, a few wishing us “Buen Camino”. It’s a slightly more monotonous path, but it is meditative in this foggy weather.

We go past the ruins of an old hospital for pilgrims as we approach the town of Navarrete. The town is shrouded in fog. We go up a slope to enter the town, and when we look back, we see a figure in the distance that looks like Samuel. We decide to wait as he catches up and joins us.

Cold and hungry, we stop at a place called Cafe Monkey which has various tapas and tostas. Among everything, the crispy pork is great.

The fog gets thicker as we leave the town, with a visibility of about 40 metres. Along a roadside path, a motorcycle convoy goes past, honking and waving at us.

The path splits from the road into some vineyards, continuing the mysterious atmosphere. The guidebook warns of stretches of hot sun today, but it’s transformed into another kind of day thanks to the winter fog. There is a chance to detour to the town of Ventosa, but it’s a long walking day so we stay on the path to save one kilometre of energy.

Gear I’m grateful for: Body Glide

If you walk long enough distances, you’ll realise specific places on your body that you chafe. A bit of friction doesn’t do much daily, but the same repetition over a long time can cause abrasion.

Too Much Information Warning: I chafe between my butt cheeks. But with Body Glide, a balm, it has been fine on the Camino so far, even on long days like today.

At 2.30pm, the sun seems to brighten, but the light is so diffused by the fog present that the scene in front of me feels otherworldly and alien. Everything is bright, but nothing has shadows. I have no shadow.

It is the effect you get when you take a photo at night and overexpose your camera to the brightness levels of a daytime photo. But instead of in a photo, I am seeing it in front of my very eyes.

The fog clears as I approach Nájera, and I see rolling plains all around me, bounded by the blue silhouette of mountains.

At the hostel, we find out that Diego had some issues with his feet and had to stop at Ventana, so it’s back down to the four of us.