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!
Jimandi 