Day 10 - walking from Navarette to Azofra (22km)

As I started out this morning I stopped at the church to find out when mass was. An older woman told me at 9am there was the rosary and at 9:30am there was a mass. Since I had time I figured I would go to both and try and learn the words to ´Hail Mary´ in Spanish. I think in the end I got most of them, but the priest seemed to be able to recite the entire prayer without taking a breath. I was the youngest person by far in the church until the mass started and a few other people under 50 appeared.

I mostly walked through fields of harvested grapes today. There are still tiny bunches left on the vines because they were too small to pick to make wine, but this also makes them perfect snack size. I also walked past a couple of olive plants and some olives were green and others black. I tried some of the darker ones to see what they tasted like. I only just bit it open to see the pitt and a very bitter, white liquid came out. After speaking with some Spaniards I learned it is a long complicated process before olives are edible. Other things I have tasted along the trails have been rosehips (they taste better in Canada) and one day in the forest a Spanish couple showed me some wild lettuce I could taste.

At the end of the day I caught up with a Spanish pilgrim and we walked into to Azofra to find the albergue. One man we met in the street told us we could stay at the church, at least that is what I first understood. When we got to the church there was actually a house next to the church where we could stay with a phone number to call. Luckily the Spanish guy had a cell phone because I later found out there were no payphones in the town. A friendly hospitalerio showed up, let us in and showed us around. We ate supper in the nearby bar because everything in the town ( the one shop) was closed because it was Sunday. In the bar there were a lot of men crowded around the tv watching a sport that looked like squash, but there were no racquets. I asked my companion what he liked to watch on t.v. and he answered ´Simpsons´. At first with the Spanish accent it sounded like he was speaking Chinese and I had no idea what he was saying, but he insisted it was popular so I eventually figured it out. With a bit of Rioja wine with supper I slept very soundly and was only woken up by the hospitalerio knocking on the door at 7:50am to come in and lock up.