Someone with a red marker had a strong opinion about which of the two options was best to take today. The hospitalero where I stayed last night did too, and had tried to convince everyone to take the “not sh*t” route, which was a little longer, but not beside a main road with trucks hurtling past. It was a no-brainer decision.
I was trudging along, my Achilles grateful to be on a hard flat surface, but a three-day-old glute pain was calling out for attention, when I saw this sign…
…it made me realise I needed some distraction and so I decided to turn my attention to looking for interesting things.
Outside of the occasional wee hamlet, the landscape was largely confined to scrubby fields that reminded me of the Via de la Plata. It was nice to be walking alone again.
When the fields started getting a bit repetitive, I focussed my gaze in close…
I stopped for a while to watch this stork making the most of the farmer’s ploughing
Time for another diversion
I was very fortunate that two of the French ladies I did a little scribble for last night caught up and insisted on buying me a freshly squeezed orange juice to say thank you for my drawing!
After the break (with five French ladies jabbering away and me none the wiser), they took off and I took photos
It didn’t take long to catch them – I was on one of my rare speed spurts…but the main reason I took this photo was to capture the mountains in the distance…still with snow:
Then I was stopped in my tracks
By now the village was in our sights and it was simply a matter of keeping on going past all the fields
The albergue was right at the edge of town and looked a bit rundown…not helped by a silent smoking woman sitting by the front door. But as soon as I walked in, I was made part of the family. Speaking more Spanish this time has made such a difference. As I had arrived before noon, I had poked my nose in the door and asked Grandma what time they would be open – “We are already open. We are always open, come in, come in,” she had said and then proceeded to tell the rest of the family I could speak Spanish whilst confiding in me how hard she finds it when the Koreanos call, because they all sound like Ho or Kim or Lee to her and she doesn’t know who she is making reservations for. Not that the booking system was too complicated – names on the wall calendar that get crossed off when you arrive.
Being so early, I decided it was a good day to wash my “after walking” clothes – they dried in just a couple of hours, so then I could shower. A couple of apricots fancied up my three-day-old salad, and there was no shortage of brie on yesterday’s bread!
When I had zipped down to the village store, I had noticed a statue that asked to be drawn, so back I trotted
There was still room on the page so I did the church to my left…
…but getting a photo from there was impossible. Here’s a different angle
And another
And yet another
And a closeup of the storks
All that done, blog post almost written, and the two reservations I had made for later in the week changed (I am going to shorten one day so had to push the bookings out – more admin than it’s worth really – so much easier just to walk and hope for the best)
and it was still only afternoon. There was time to put my feet up, do some cross stitch, and dig into my ready-to-eat quinoa salad, which seemed a good idea when I bought it, but when I came to eat it, I found I was hankering after butter chicken. Thankfully it tasted great and I still had a hunk of Brie to finish off.
SoloWalk2024 