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 add to the charm 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 welcome seeing warehouses and factories and empty lots and power lines and apartment blocks scruffy and manicured, and the bustling commercial districts with signs and billboards and gleaming shop windows, and walking not only on dirt paths but also on narrow highway shoulders with cars and trucks and busses zooming by.

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

I had a disturbing experience 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 blustery snowfall some of the time, and occasionally the earth is covered in a thick layer of off-white fluff. 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 and mouth. A middle-aged British couple who I had passed earlier and had been kind of cold and 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 told them I had inhaled a seed pod. Well, they didn't even slow down as he said "hmmm, rawther unpleasant, that", and walked right by. Hmmm...