Day 21 – Villalcazár de Sirga to Terradillos de los Templarios

Walked today: 5.1 mi. Camino’26: 146 mi.

Our taxi driver, who happened to be the Don Camino innkeeper, picked us up at 7:00a.m. and took us the 3 miles to Carrión de los Condes and another 12 miles beyond to Calzadilla de la Cueza. Since our 2nd camino in 2017, we have skipped the walk from Carrion to Calzadilla. It’s 12 miles of nearly treeless, countryside with no place to eat, no place to use a restroom, no place to spend the night and no drinkable water. We decided it detracts, not adds to our camino experience, so we just skip it, via a 40€, 20 minute taxi ride.

Just after the taxi driver dropped us off at the trailing edge of Calzadilla de la Cueza, we rejoined the camino here.
The look of the first mile or so walking along a very lightly traveled secondary road.
Even before 8:00 and a slow-rising sun, the shade was refreshing.
A pilgrim on roller blades?
The path crossed the Río Cueza and we were given the option of continuing in the dirt, sometimes rocky, path or a wide paved shoulder along the road… we opted for the road. The path oscillated above and below the road, resulting in unnecessary ups and downs. For us, this can be determinant.
Here the path has elevated 10-15 feet compared to the road,
As we approached a potentially dangerous bend in the road, we switched back to the dirt path.
The path is diverting away from the road as we approach Ledigos.
Last year, this section was difficult to walk as the bushes had almost completely overgrown the path. Some good trimming work has been done since then, recently,
Entering the paved road into Ledigos
If you consider just the Camino within Spain, beginning from Roncesvalles, Ledigos is the mid-point of the Camino Frances.
Ledigos (pop.74) is a sleepy little hamlet. The church is perched on a hill and it’s never been open when we passed through… so today, we walked on to a favorite breakfast/rest stop after a 3.5 mile walk.

We stopped for breakfast and renewed our chat with the group of young folks from China the we met yesterday on the bar terrace. We discovered they were an interesting mix from Hong Kong, Taiwan and Shenzhen.

The in-line skater we sighted earlier stopped for a break. He was from Paris, France and was on his way to Santiago.
Back on the path with 2 miles to go to Terradillos.
Crossing the Cueza river again, then…
… back on to the path.
First sighting of one of our favorites, Albergue Templarios.
The gate was open, so we walked in and made ourselves at home on the porch in the shade at 10:08 a.m.

This will be our 7th stay at Templarios. The albergue opens at noon, so we settled in on the porch and began a game of Hand&Foot with snacks and drinks we brought with us. (Our WiFi settings remembered the ID and Password from last year.)

At 11:15, Nuria, the innkeeper came out of the front door to our table with a big smile on her face and welcomed us back! She gestured for us to come on inside and said in very understandable English, “let’s get you to your room.”.

Our room today.

We immediately got showers, turned our dirty clothes over to Nuria and got settled in.

At 1:30, we had a light lunch of bocadillos: omelette for Linda and tuna for Jim.

As we walked past the reception desk, back to our room, Nuria handed us a basket of our washed, dried and folded freshly, clean clothes.

The afternoon was routine but extra relaxing, because of the warm, friendly but professional atmosphere.

The room colors and ceiling were relaxing and very conducive to 💤.

At 6:00 we had a simple dinner of beef stew and lentil soup for Jim and ensalada mixta for Linda with a glass of vino tinto local wine and yogurt for dessert.

After dinner we settled up for the day’s expenses and said our goodbyes to Nuria.

We retired to our room, published today’s post (hopefully with photos) and set our alarm for 5:30 a.m.

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