Jimandi

Walked today: 4 mi. Camino’26: 141 mi.

After yesterday’s longer than planned walk, it shortened today’s walk considerably.

The section of Camino from Frómista to Carion de los Contes has very few trees to provide pilgrims with shade. This tree was shading a small community park. There were no other trees along the path for the entire walk.

With the unmatched timing of our 8:34 a.m. arrival time and the 2:00 p.m. checkin time, we creatively went about finding ways to occupy potentially 5.5 hours of waiting.

We first found a table and chairs on the terrace adjacent to the only open bar in the village and ordered breakfast.

Knowing this to be a collecting point for pilgrims, mostly just passing through, we enjoyed interesting conversations with (1) a retired USNavy officer originally from Colorado Springs and currently living in Sardinia (2) A group of 20-something Chinese citizens who spoke excellent English and sought information about the Camino ahead (3) young couple from Australia (4) An older, but younger than us gentleman from New Zealand, just to mention a few.

When a gap in pilgrim traffic occurred, we took a short walk backwards out of the village to see where yesterday’s alternate route would have taken us, had we stayed on it to the end.

Before leaving for our exploratory walk, Jim sent a WhatsApp message to the innkeeper of Don Camino, our accommodation for today, asking if we could get access to our room before the 2:00 standard checkin. We got a message from her saying our room was ready and although the Albergue wouldn’t open until 2:00, she would meet us at the front door in 5 minutes with the key to our room. We were ecstatic and grabbed our stuff and walked to the albergue.

Miraculously, our backpacks were waiting for us, validating that we were definitely back on the original transport itinerary.

We did our chores and otherwise settled in until our tummies signaled it was time for lunch. The Don Camino bar and restaurant was not open at 2:30, so we walked back to our breakfast bar and ordered our meal for the day.

We’ve visited this 13th century church on multiple occasions and decided to skip the visit today. Since the 13th-century, many miracles of curing individual maladies have been attributed to the Virgin Blanca (White Virgin). She was believed to protect and cure pilgrims that passed through the area over the years, adding to the importance she brought to the Camino Frances.

We finally checked in at 4:30, as the bar was finally open. We also asked the innkeeper to call a taxi to meet us tomorrow at 7:00 a.m. outside the bar to take us to Calzadilla de la Cueza to continue our walk.

Sorry about the omitted photos from yesterday’s post. Weak, unreliable WiFi is not a chronic problem on the Camino, but it does interfere with getting the posts out occasionally. To see the photos for yesterday, find a calendar on any post and click on June 15 to take you a version with the photos.

Buen Camino!

Walked today:10.3 mi. Camino’26: 137mi.

Late yesterday afternoon, we received an email, in Spanish, from the owner of today’s destination in Población de Campos. She said that she had overbooked and did not have a room for us tonight. She apologized and said she was looking for another place for us to stay.

She explained that because of a family emergency she had been out of town and her substitute had made the booking error.

Rather than waiting to see when and what she might find for us, Jim opened the Booking. com app and searched for a new place for us to stay that would not severely alter our walking plans for today, which was 7.5 miles.

Fortunately he found a property and immediately booked it. Next, he located Eduardo, who was checking in other guests. He asked Eduardo for help with contacting the backpack transport company, as we knew our level of Spanish would make problem solving more difficult than it needed to be. So, Eduardo called his “friend” with the transport company and arranged for this morning’s pickup to take our packs to the new location and not the original one listed on our 45 location itinerary… and he also explained that the pick-up of our packs tomorrow morning needed to be at the new location and then taken to the next location on our original itinerary. Can you see why Jim sought E’s help in “fixing” the problem?

So, we had our fingers crossed as we began today’s walk, leaving our backpacks in the En El Camino pickup point and hoping we would see them again, particularly in today’s new destination.

Thankfully, today’s walk was on flat, easy-to-walk-on surfaces.

We walked up to the Casona Doña Petra at 11:30 a.m. after a 10 plus mile walk. The innkeeper was locking the front door and getting ready to leave when we told her we had a reservation and she immediately reversed course and checked us in.

We unlocked our room door and dropped, exhausted onto the inviting king bed, sweating wet and all.

A few minutes later we began getting acquainted with the room offerings and the common areas in the inn. Until two more guests checked in, an a hour or so later, we had the inn to ourselves.

Our backpacks hadn’t arrived yet so we did what chores we could without them. This included soaking our poor overworked feet in the too-cold-to-swim-water in the pool.

We decided to have a sandwich lunch since no other food option was available until dinner. The innkeeper/chef prepared us a triple-decker ham and cheese sandwich for lunch and served it to us on the terrace overlooking the pool.

We rested and blogged until about 2:00 when we became concerned about not yet having our backpacks. The air tags in each of our backpacks indicated our packs were still in Boadilla. We were in the process of contacting Eduardo when our packs were finally delivered at 2:20.

After a brief and quiet celebration (in the absence of additional guests, the innkeeper had fallen asleep on a common area sofa and could be heard snoring loudly throughout the inn) we took our packs to our room, successfully getting us back onto our original itinerary.

With all our stuff finally in one place, we proceeded to complete our chores for the remaining time before dinner.

Our dinner was fried chicken, mixed salad and fries. We were seated in the dining area with the other two guests. They were two ladies who knew each other and lived in Switzerland. One was formerly from Italy. the other from Hungary. They both spoke English and shared Camino experiences until retiring to our rooms for the evening.

Walked today: 5.3 mi. Camino’26: 127 mi.

We consider En El Camino among the best places to stay on the Camino Frances. It excels and never disappoints with regard to quality of facilities, food and overall experience. The staff is professional, welcoming, friendly and competent. It’s also among the least expensive of all the accommodations we have stayed-in spanning over 400 nights on the Camino Frances, making its overall value unmatched. Today was our 5th visit.

As soon as we arrived, Eduardo, the Hospitelier, recognized us and welcomed us back. He took our order for breakfast along with dozens of other pilgrims arriving at the same time.

When we asked if our room was ready, he gave us a key and said he’d check us in later when the crowd subsided keeping us from waiting unnecessarily.

While waiting for our transported backpacks to arrive, we had our main meal in the dining room, assisted by very helpful staff, whose English was far superior to our Spanish, and who patiently took our order and attended to us as needed during the 3 course meal.

Our backpacks arrived as we finished our meal and we retired to our spacious, spotless, modern room with well equipped electrical outlets and fully functioning bathroom and shower fixtures and got on with our daily chores.

I know it sounds like we’re making a big deal about En El Camino. Pilgrims in general become used to making the best of various hospitaliers and their offerings and shortcomings … some would suggest that it is part of being a pilgrim.

But when we see excellence on the part of Camino service providers, we celebrate it and share our appreciation with providers that go beyond the norm.

Walked today: 7.6 mi. Camino’26: 122 mi.

We began our walk at 6:00 a.m. to hopefully catch a pretty sunrise as we climbed Alto de Mostelares. We walked for a mile before leaving Castrojeriz and then began walking across ancient wetlands via a still functioning Roman causeway. At the end of the causeway were the ruins and reconstruction of a Roman bridge of the 1st century.

Immediately after crossing the bridge the path began a sharp rise upward to to the pinnacle of Alto de Mostelares.

We walked steadily with an occasional hesitation to catch a breath until we reached the top after a 700 ft climb.

Once at the top, we allowed ourselves a 2 minute bench break, then proceeded to walk along the mesa for a quarter-mile, before carefully descending down on longest and steepest slope of Camino 2026, so far.

Once at the bottom, injury-free, thankfully, we continued a normal walk for the next 5 miles.

Immediately after the Chapel was the Puenta del Fitero, commissioned by Alfonso VI in the 11th-century to unify the territories of Castile and Leon.

(Itero de la Vega was known as “Fitero” in the Middle Ages.)

The Puente del Fitero is considered one of the longest on the Camino Frances.

We faced nearly a 4-hour wait to check in, so we spent the time watching and greeting pilgrims that walked by or stopped for r&r before moving on. We chatted with pilgrim friends from Switzerland, South Korea, Alabama and England that we had met over the past week that were catching and passing us today… that we may or may not see again.

We had breakfast, assorted drinks and snacks. Linda sat with our day packs on the terrace, while Jim (growing more impatient) took a tour of this very limited facility village (pop. 177) looking for potential sources for food for our main meal. He returned after a 20 minute exhausted search, empty-handed.

The restaurant menu options of our albergue are few, including a skimpy pilgrim dinner at 7:00 p.m,, so as we watched the supply of ready made bocadillos began to dwindle, we purchased 3 different variants.

Some of the ingredients in our three bocadillos were: iberian ham, sliced cheese, cream cheese, smoked salmon, avocado, pulled pork, tomato and lettuce.

From this collection of sandwiches we created a main meal to eat immediately, while we waited and the rest to take for later consumption in our room, which was finally ready for check in at 1:25p.m.

Once we got into our room we began our routines and had a reasonably smooth afternoon and evening.

Reflecting on day Day 18, the difficult walk seemed less difficult than our memories from seven prior caminos. Perhaps an interesting trend is developing for walking the Camino Frances in your 80’s.

Walked today: 5.3 mi. Camino’26: 114 mi.

As we got ready to leave our room at 7:30, we were missing a set of trekking poles. We looked at each other and somewhat short of a panic, recounted our movements yesterday and guessed that we had left the poles at La Puntido while waiting to check in. Realizing that the La Pundito bar may be open, we walked (not ran) to the bar and were so relieved to find the poles where we apparently left them, now waiting anxiously to be reunited with us.

So, we could say, ” the Camino provides” but you already know that, so we’ll get on with our journal of today’s walk?

Walking out of Hontanas, a pilgrim has the two options shown in the photo.

At first glance, the traditional route is the path, but if you look closely at the photo, the path appears to climb back up the hill to the top of the meseta and presumably back down eventually into Castrojeriz.

The road appears to be flat and nicely shaded.

On our first Camino, we were walking in the dark and took the road by accident because we didn’t read the guide clearly. The next two Caminos, we were walking in the summer heat and a shaded, flat path seemed like a good idea. The first 3 Caminos after the pandemic, we walked to Hontanas, took a taxi to Castrojeriz, skipping the Hontanas to Castrojeriz segment altogether. However, in 2025, walking on a cool morning in daylight, we decided to try the path and quickly found that it did not go all the way to top, but leveled off after only a slight elevation above the road and stayed level with a nice view for most of the way to Castrojeriz.

Needless to say, today we took the path again and recommend it, with the only exception being, walking in the heat of the day, when the shady road route could provide some welcome relief on the way to Castrojeriz.

We rarely see wildlife on the Camino, other than birds, squirrels, snails and very infrequently, a small snake. Today we encountered a fox.

When we first saw him, he headed back into the grain field as another pilgrim or two walked past him. He came back out on the path again, about 50 yards ahead of us and began to walk, matching our pace. This continued for a quarter mile or so until the path ahead narrowed and we switched over to walk in the road, not wanting to creat a potential confrontation.

The Monastery of San Antón was founded in 1146 by King Alfonso VII as a hospital for pilgrims, particularly those suffering from St. Anthony’s Fire, a disease widespread in the Middle Ages. The ruins remaining today date back to the 14th century when the Monastery had become a significant architectural structure. St. Antón, an Egyptian hermit of the 3rd-century is the patron saint of animals.

Today, the convent ruins is a primative albergue with communal meals by candlelight, no electricity or hot water, a basic, special experience for some.

The Castillo de San Esteban was originally used by the Romans (said to be reinforced by Julius Caesar) to protect the roads to Galicia’s lucrative gold mines.

After arriving in Castrojeriz much too early to check in to Albergue Orion we stopped for a leisure breakfast at this delightful new bar.

Still too early for check in, we walked across the street from El Jardin and visited the Iglesia de Santa María del Manzano.

Legend has it that Mary appeared to St. James from an apple tree and he was so startled that his horse reared up and came down heavily, leaving hoofprints in the stone outside the entrance of this 13th-century church.

It was getting near to our check in time so we walked on and found a nice bench in the shade just outside of Albergue Orion.

The pilgrim dinner tonight was prepared by the Orion Korean cook. It was called BIB-N-BOP. It was a collection of different Korean vegetables, proteins and sauces presented in a bowl.

Our dinner conversation was mostly with two young men, a recently discharged South Korean soldier deciding what to do next and a young professional from Switzerland who was a controller for a large company. Both were planning to walk all the way to Santiago.

The BIB-N-BOP was tasty and filling, preparing us for an early bedtime for tomorrow’s walk.

Walked today: 6.8 mi. Camino’26: 109 mi.

We reached Hontanas at 10:30 and stopped at the first and only bar open in the village… for breakfast and to get off our feet.

Our room won’t be ready until 1:00, so we walked to and waited in the small square near Iglesia de Nuestra Señora de la Concepción.

We took possession of two chairs and a table and relaxed and enjoyed the warm sun as it gradually but comfortably raised temperature of the chilly breeze that made today’s walk a little bit easier than usual.

During our wait, we not only could see the front door of Villa Fontañas, but we were able to watch the arrival of the Correos transport van. Our eyes were focused, with anticipation, when the driver opened the rear door, removed two backpacks that were unmistakably ours and placed them inside the front door of the Villa.

Any anxiety we may have had about the potential for our bags getting lost due to the venue change in Hormillos, were quickly erased and we relaxed even further until finally entering our room at 12:45.

We selected La Pundito restaurant for our main meal at 2:00 p.m. It was only a few steps from the Villa and also served as the reception for checking in for Villa Fontañas. (We stayed at La Pundito albergue the first three times we walked the Camino Frances.)

The pilgrim’s menu of the day offered some appealing options.

Our tummies full, we headed back to the room and engaged in our routines and reflected on our feelings about today’s walk.

For a variety of reasons, the walk to Hontanas has always been one of the more difficult for us. Today it seemed to be somewhat easier. The cooler temperature helped. Maybe we’re getting used to it, after 8 tries?

Anyway, we’ll take it as an indication that walking the Camino Frances doesn’t necessarily have to become more difficult as you get older, even into your 80’s. We hope that’s true, ’cause we’re only a third of the way to Santiago!