Month: September 2022

Walked Today: 7.5 mi / Camino2022: 192 mi

Today was going to be a shorter walk, after hoofing it more than 8 miles the previous two days. It actually started out just as planned. We left our hotel at 6:45 and walked for about 2.5 miles in the dark. We reached a junction just outside of Calzada de Coto where the Camino splits. Going through Calzada results in walking an extra 3 miles and it misses Bercianos completely, where we have reserved for the night.

We missed the poorly/confusingly marked split-off in 2014 and walked nearly into Calzada, before a local resident pointed us in the correct direction. Having learned from our 2014 near goof, in 2017 and 2019, we carefully maneuvered through the junction and were merrily on our way. Today was a different story.

We remembered not to go right at the junction, but we went too far left and missed the Camino entirely. Not realizing we had found a new way to goof, we continued walking for over a half-mile until we realized that nothing around us looked familiar.

Jim pulled out the Google Earth app so we could see the actual area from above and when we saw what had happened, we looked for a way to take a short cut back onto the Camino. We cut across a couple of mowed fields to a farm road the angled over to the Camino. (If we had remembered that it was at the junction that the Camino becomes a path with evenly spaced trees to provide shade all the way into Leon, we would have become aware of our wrong turn much sooner. What a difference 3 years makes!)

The map below shows our path, then reversing course, then cutting across the fields, then returning to the Camino.

This unplanned deviation added an extra 1.6 miles to today’s walk!

Adding to our excitement, forecasted showers had been threatening all morning long. We delayed putting our rain gear on mainly because we were focused on getting “unlost”! With less than a quarter mile to go, small water droplets began falling. We walked faster, entered the albergue gates, hustled inside and ordered breakfast. No sooner had we taken our first sip of cafe con leche, when the heavens opened up! For the next 20-30 minutes, thoroughly drenched pilgrims came charging up the sidewalk, into the front door, while we watched… warm and dry in the refuge.

We stayed at La Perala in 2019, soon after its opening. It is a very nice albergue, owned and operated by the same family that owns and operates Albergue Los Templarios, where we stayed two days ago.

The hospitality demonstrated by our hosts was unsurpassed today. Every member of the staff went out of their way to make sure that our stay was satisfying. They were each well organized, friendly and striving to please…. at 40€ per night for a double room, ensuite bathroom, large shower, good food, plenty of comfortable sitting areas in a warm, relaxed environment.

We had interesting conversations with a guy from Holland, as well as a former Michelin employ who lives in Leon, France and was walking his Camino from there. We also chatted with a young lady from Germany, and a lady from Sarasota, Florida, among others.

We’ll hopefully get our shorter walk day, tomorrow and have shut off our alarms tonight, accordingly. It’s amazing how our miscue this morning was so quickly overcome and lost among so many positive experiences and encounters during the rest of the day.

Walked Today: 8.3 mi / Camino2022: 184 mi

It was a warm, humid 62F when we left Los Templarios at 6:35 this morning. Our first rest/breakfast stop was a little more than 2 miles down the path, in Moratinos.

Shortly after, while walking to the next hamlet, we looked over our shoulder and saw a nice sunrise.

Another two miles later, we made our second rest/breakfast stop. Before arriving in San Nicolas del Real Camino, we passed a sign regarding one of the two bars/ albergues in the hamlet.

We stopped at the first bar, a favorite, from prior Caminos. We have stayed in the albergue (2014) of bar number 2 and eaten there also Both bars have good food, based on our experience.

Just outside of San Nicolas…., the Camino pulled alongside of N-120, going into Sahagún. We then walked the next 4 miles, arriving at our hotel at 10:40 and check-in.

Our room was still being cleaned, so we waited on the hotel terrace until 12:00, when we accessed our room and began unloading and organizing our stuff for the afternoon and evening.

We decided to walk 7 minutes to a supermarket to gather some snacks for the next several days. By then, it was 1:30, so we took a seat in the hotel dining room for our main meal of the day.

The owner/ waiter brought us a menu in the form of scribblings on a small piece of paper, and proceeded to go down the list quickly in Spanish (did we mention that people around here are all fluent in Spanish, for some reason, and mostly assume everyone else is too?) making it clear by demonstrating on our first question, that all responses were going to be in even faster Spanish. Jim, whose stomach growl could be heard by Linda, chose something with included the word pasta for his 1st course, and after asking about the last item on the list and understanding nothing.,. said he’d take that one. Linda followed a similar approach picking an item with tomato in the description and the word pollo (chicken).

So, what was the verdict on Jim’s mystery selection for course 2?

What do you think?

The rest of the day was spent napping, blogging, etc. Long walk, feeling strong, having fun on the Camino Frances.

Walked today: 8.9 mi /Camino2022: 176 mi

After walking in the dark for nearly a half-hour, the scenery around us was still the same as yesterday.

We reached Carrion de los Condes after 3.5 miles and stopped for breakfast at La Corte, a very nice restaurant/albergue.

We’ve had two dinners and now, two breakfasts here. As soon as we finished eating, we asked the waiter to please call us a taxi, which arrived at 8:30.

The driver took us to Calzadilla de la Cueza, which is located at the end of the walk from Carrion, which offers 11 miles with no shade and no services… one of the longest stretches without a town on the Camino Frances.

The next 3 plus miles were quite pleasant. Even though we walked along a two lane, lightly traveled road the entire way, the natural shrubs and trees mostly blocked our view of the road and provided ample shade to mitigate the ever increasing heat from the sun.

Just after leaving the dirt path before entering Ledigos, we encountered some nice pilgrim art, created from nearby stones.

Ledigos is a very small village with brick and adobe buildings. Nevertheless, it has two nice albergues. It was nearly 11:00 so we stopped at the newest one and had “smoothies”!

The walk out of Ledigos was beautiful. A huge birch tree also captured our attention on the way out.

Albergue Los Templarios was not open until noon, so we made ourselves at home on the front porch (in the shade) and discovered the wifi was strong and the password was the same as 2019 (both our phones remembered).

At 11:50, the owner opened the front door, welcomed us inside and we were soon in our room.

We took advantage of the laundry service to wash our clothes (4€) and we hung them out to dry ourselves.

We had ensalada mixta’s for lunch. The afternoon was spent enjoying the property. We had nice chats with two guys, both retired, from Stuttgart, Germany and a British couple currently working in Madrid. They were both nurses, walking their first Camino. We talked about our recent Camino experiences and their experiences working in medical facilities during the pandemic.

We had a dinner in the albergue dining room and retired to our room at 8:30.

Walked Today: 6.2 mi / Camino2022: 167 mi

We began the day with a “moon set”… and a sunrise a half-hour later… not photo worthy.😉.

Most of the villages we’ve encountered yesterday and today end with Compos, “fields” in Spanish. After walking along a two lane paved road with light vehicle traffic but relatively heavy pilgrim traffic for couple of miles we passed quickly through Revenga en Campos, then back along the road. (Note: cyclist pilgrim pulling good size cart behind)

Next, we approached Villarmentero de Campos. It being about breakfast time, we saw an intriguing sign and decided to make a stop.

We returned to the road and “campos” and walked another 3 miles to Villalcazar de Sirga.

We waited comfortably in the La Cantigas Bar terrace until our room was ready.

After attending to some chores, we had a three course lunch in the Las Cantigas Bar, then walked to a nearby “supermarket”, about the size of our living room back home, to get some snacks for next several days and returned to our room.

Later, we ventured out to the huge church dwarfing our hostal and did the self-guided tour and got a stamp for our credential for the day.

Back in our room, we were more than adequately sated from our lunch, so we decided again to skip dinner and finish out the day blogging and reading.

Walked Today: 6.1 mi / Camino2022: 161 mi

We were on our way at 6:40, before first light. Linda captured this shot as we began walking along the Canal de Castile.

The Canal de Castile was intended to transport grain from Castile to the northern port of Santander on the bay of Biscay and to other markets from there; vice versa the canal was also intended to facilitate moving products from the Spanish colonies to Castile. Construction was started in 1753 and continued until 1849 with only 207 of the planned 400 km completed when work was halted as railroads began to be built to serve northern Spain. The canal ultimately evolved into a major part of an irrigation system still in use today.

We stopped for breakfast in Formista, then continued on to Población de Campos, to complete today’s planned walk.

We arrived at a very early 9:45, but the front door was open and when we identified ourselves, Carmen told us that our room was not ready, but we were welcome to come in and use the rest room and sit in the jardin behind the building until our room was ready. A few minutes after we were settled she brought us each a glass of fresh squeezed orange juice and recognized us from our previous visits! We love this place, having stayed here in 2014 and 2017 and have been excited about returning since booking it several days ago for Camino 2022.

We got into our room about 10:15, did our chores, had a delicious lunch in the casa dining room ….

…..hung out in our room or the jardin: napping blogging and reading until lights out at 9:00 p.m.

Walked Today: 5.2 mi / Camino2022: 155 mi

We turned off the alarms for this morning and slept only an extra 45 minutes! With the shortage of bathroom space, we figured we’d have an easier time getting ready if we let most of the more than 30 other pilgrims go first. Our plan worked… we had the bathroom all to ourselves and left at 7:30.

We walked just over 5 miles, dictated by our reservations made two days ago. The Camino is still busy and we’re glad we made some more bookings in advance. The walk was less interesting than most.

We remember this section of the Camino, because about half way there is rise in the mostly flat terrain and at the crest, we could see the steeple of the church in Boadillo del Camino. But regardless of how much we actually advanced toward it, visually we didn’t appear to be making any progress. This has happened now for all 4 Camino’s and we can’t explain it.

The first records of Boadillo del Camino’s existence occur in AD905! The church and Rollo were built in the 15-16th centuries when the town became more affluent.

This is our first time to stay in Boadillo del Camino (pop. 70). We usually passed through early in the morning, in a hurry to make it to Formista or Población de Campos before it got too hot …and the only thing open was the bar at another albergue, where we would have breakfast and moved on.

Today we checked-in early, at 10:45, got showers, paid 7.50€ for laundry service, and ventured out while waiting for lunchtime at our Casa Rural Boadillo en el Camino.

We had one of our great Camino moments today. While wandering aimlessly around Boadillo, looking for a market, we were approached by a resident who asked if we spoke Spanish. He was clearly disappointed with our response, but motioned for another young man to come over who could speak English.

Mario Mediavilla, a young 80-year-old, said he had completed three Camino’s, the first in 1992 on a horse! He also said he knew English because he has a “rich” uncle who owns several liquor stores in NYC. He also pointed up the street to his new house.

After chatting for a few minutes longer, Mario asked if we would like to see his “museum”. We both responded simultaneously with “Si!” and we followed him up to the end of his street and to what appeared to be a garage door, with a chain, but no lock.

Mario opened the door and the first thing we saw was a cheese press, which he explained he used to make goat cheese. But all around us were relics, mostly farm implements, many over 100 years and older. Many were labeled like in an antique store.

He opened another door down to another lower level filled with all kinds of weighing scales, again many well over a hundred years old…also in one corner were a couple dozen aging cheese wheels… 90 days to maturity.

We continued into another room which was a garage occupied by a Mercedes Kompressor. The garage walls were neatly filled with displays of farm implements, skis, children’s antique toys, horse tack, etc. Jim asked Mario which saddle he rode in his first Camino and he proudly pointed to it.

At the end of our tour, Mario asked us to sign his guestbook. He said he so far had over 1000 entries! He also showed us and read to us, what appeared to be a prayer which we copied.

We then thanked Mario for sharing his wonderful “museum” and worked our way out of the building. As we walked down the street, Mario ushered us into a large barn (tractor engine running outside) and called out to his brother, who we’re sure felt left out from the English tour. His brother then guided us through the barn through a door in the rear, an we went outside to a large pen or corral for 15-20 goats… several who were close to delivery.

Mario pointed out one goat that was the unusual “brother” of four that were born to a dam this past season. We thanked Mario’s brother (name never revealed) and walked away in amazement at what we had just experienced.

PRAYER TRANSLATION:

Lord, teach me how to be a builder of your peace.

If I can encourage those who are dejected, if I can give strength to my neighbor, if I can cheer him up with my song, tell me how to do it, Lord.

If I can help those who suffer, if I can relieve any burden, if I can spread more joy, tell me how to do it, Lord.

If I can lift those who fell, if I can relieve sorrows and sufferings, if I can share life and path,

Tell me how to do it, Lord!

We returned to our casa and had a large lunch, probably enough for supper, too. We settled into our nice room, a palace, compared to yesterday and read, napped and blogged for the remaining afternoon.

After our full lunch, we decided to not have another meal and instead had a snack dessert and retired for the evening after a memorable day on the Camino Frances.