On Friday August 30th I checked out of my hotel and took a taxi to the transportation center. Madrid is interesting because it has multiple stations where you can catch a bus or a train. Today my bus for Nàjera leaves from the transportation center on Avienda de Americas. This is a huge station where there are more than 50 buses leaving at any given time. You can travel all over the country and I am sure Europe from here on many different bus lines. I am traveling on Jimenez bus lines which goes from Madrid to Pamplona with a stop in Nàjera.
I got lucky and my bus seat mate was a young lady from Columbia who was traveling to Logroño to study at the university there. Her brother lives there so she will stay with him until she get here own apartment. You who read this will be shocked that we struck up a conversation and talked almost non-stop for the 4 hour bus ride. We spoke in a mixture of Spanish and English as she is fluent in both.
Once my bus arrived I walked a few blocks from the bus station to the Albergue and then waited for a hospitalero it arrive. The albergue doesn’t open until 2pm so the hospitaleros have a few hour break to get a coffee, go for a walk, do some shopping or whatever then might like.
I spent the afternoon getting to know the system and reacquainted with the albergue. It has only 48 beds today as opposed to the 90 that it had when I served in 2016.