The walk across Logrono, much of it the antithesis of what I had seen earlier, made me love the Camino even more. Of course I want to experience the idyllic countryside and the near perfect villages with just enough decay to make them super picturesque and the towering architecture of grand churches and ancient royal buildings. But I also want to feel the full experience of walking across a real country, callouses, scars, and all.

So I embrace the warehouses and factories and empty lots and power lines and the scruffy and manicured apartment blocks, and the bustling commercial districts with gleaming shop windows and signs and billboards, and walking not only on dirt paths but also on narrow highway shoulders with cars and trucks and busses zooming by, and... well you get it, I embrace it all.

Leaving Logrono this morning was all of that. Curiously it was the least well-marked part of the route so far, and in fact I made a few wrong turns. But my puzzled looks were answered by local folks gesturing me in the right direction. Leaving town was lovely. The path goes through a park active with runners, bikers, dog-walkers, strollers, and pilgrims, and along the reservoir for the town. Then back through vineyards and farmland on the way to Navarette, where I am now.

I had a disturbing experience just about a kilometer outside of Navarette. This time of year there's an amazing amount of airborne seed pods flying through the air. It's almost like snowfall some of the time, and sometimes the earth is covered in a thick layer. As I was walking a gust of wind sent hundreds of them in my direction, and one flew into my mouth and I inhaled it. I couldn't stop coughing violently and felt as if I were choking to death. I threw off my pack and for several minutes had a hard time catching my breath. I must have been a sight, with liquids streaming out my eyes and nose. A middle-aged British couple who I had passed earlier and had been kind of standoffish was walking a couple of hundred yards behind me and must have seen the whole thing. By the time they got to me I had finally gotten control of myself, and as they approached I said I had inhaled a seed pod. Well, they didn't even slow down as he said "hmmm, rawther unpleasant, that", and walked right by. And I thought, hmmm, rawther unempathetic, that.

But in the spirit of the day I suppose I should embrace that as well.