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Published: October 7th 2009
On Saturday (3.10.09) we woke up late (7.30am) in our green oasis hostel in Boadilla. No one in our entire 20-odd bed room had set an alarm! We missed the 7am breakfast but the owner was nice enough to sell us a giant coffee (in a bowl again!) and cake. We got walking around 9am in the thick mist, now well and truly in the flat Mesata plains, the biggest hill being about 10m high. The mist made for some great photos and we followed a famous Canal, Canal de Castilla, for a fair way into Fromista. There were hundreds of perfect, dew covered spiderwebs on all the small bushes along the side of our road. We got into Fromista just as the sun came out, around lunch time, where I stopped for food and Angi photographed the town Cathedral as well as stopping past the pharmacy (farmacía), which we have come to do regularly.
I must say that no-one mentions the amount of money one must spend on plaster tape, gauze, compedes (discoverably useless blister covers), ibuprofen, ibuprofen gel, deep-heat rub and other medicines on the Camino. If I could recommend to anyone the one thing to take, it would be wide plaster tape. The amount of tendonitis people get in their feet, legs, hips and ankles is amazing. I don´t know what I would do without mine.
From Fromista, it was along a boring road, past a couple of small towns, into Carrión de los Condes. The last 6km were painful; it was in the hot afternoon sun, the road consisted of a dirt track next to the highway, and the kilometre markers counted down one by one, every 12 minutes or so. Along this road I developed my first blister, which luckily was tiny and easily taken care of. Lots of locals were going for a walk up and back along the road which we found strange. We found some fellow pilgrims that we knew from early on, some germans which I find good to talk to and practice my deutsch with, who showed us where a good hostel was. It was in a large church ground, run by nuns, with religious statues everywhere! It was nice though, with hot showers. After discovering the town, Angi went to bed early and I stayed out looking around for some dinner for a while before buying a sandwich and going to bed.
On Sunday we woke up at a decent time and after a coffee at a local café we set off around 8am. It was still a bit dark at that time as there was a bit of rain around. I walked ahead with the germans, practising my german, while Angi took lots of photos of the town. A rainbow came out and after a quick toilet break in a rare protected spot (places are harder and harder to find on the Meseta!) Angi and the others went ahead while I walked slowly, listening to my music. We had 32km to go today and after a while it got hot and unexplainably boring. The dirt road went on and on, the promise of a town, Calzadilla, seemed forever far away. Even when I got to the town it was again in a hollow so I didn´t see it until I had given up hope of it being there! We stopped for beer and juice then continued on to San Nicolás. Angi again went ahead and I listened to my music, which got me there eventually. At the end of this day my left shin had started to hurt so badly that it was hard to walk. The albergue was really nice, the seemingly one alive building in the small town, with a bar downstairs and rooms upstairs. We chanced on a room for ourselves as there weren´t many people staying there and after a good dinner with other pilgrims and doing a big load of washing, we had a good sleep.
It was easy to get going on Monday, with our decent sleep and clean clothes! After breakfast downstairs we set off around 7.30am, in first light, for another 30km or so. The moon was up and sparse rain clouds drifted by which made for more nice photos. We walked along a flat dirt road to Sahagun, where we had coffee before seeing the rest of the town. We discovered a pilgrim monument which told us Sahagun was half way along the Camino Francés. After Sahagun, just before Calzada del Coto, the route split into two alternatives to our sleeping town, El Burgo Ranero. I decided to go along the shorter, supposedly more boring route, while Angi took the longer route as shown on her maps. Many other pilgrims went the same way as Angi, without intending to, as the split in the route was unclear. It was a bit sad to split up but it was a good experience walking alone. It took me over 3.5 hours to complete the 12km or so, as the last 3km my shin pain was again so bad that I had to stop every 10 minutes to rest it. The road was again unpectacular; just a line of trees lining my dirt road and a country road running parallel the whole way. I did have a sense today of the sheer number of people that would have walked the path I walk in the past. Angi arrived a half hour before me to discover that the albergue was full, so when I arrived we checked into a private twin room across the road, above a pub for €20 each. It was sufficient; hot showers and no bed bugs (that´s our bar level at the moment!). After a good dinner next door at a restaurant we packed our bags (it was nice to not need our sleeping bags and towels) and got a decent night´s sleep.
Yesterday we got up at 6am as Angi decided she wanted to try to get ahead, chasing the possibility that she could get to Finisterre on the coast (90km past our original destination of Santiago) in the same time frame. Her aim was León - a small 40km away. I decided that Santiago is far enough for me as my body is already telling me that I have gone far enough! We started together, in the dark and using my head torch, before Angi pushed on ahead once the light was good enough. There were lots of pilgrims on the road so we felt fine walking alone. I went very slow, drinking a lot of water with a salts mix added, to try to help my shin. It was working well but with lots of water comes lots of toilet stops! And with no cover whatsoever, I was very glad I was walking behind the majority of pilgrims! I reached Reliegos, 12km from our start, where I found an unusual bar! It was run by a seemingly hippie man, who sung and whisteled along to easy-listening english songs (who knows if he actually understood them), and who encouraged everyone to write on the wall. I wrote my name and drew some starts in the shape of the southern cross, had a bite to eat then pushed on to Mansilla, just 6km away. I felt good and thought I could get there in 1.5 hours. Unfortunately my shin had other ideas so after 2 hours I arrived, in a lot of pain! I decided that that was enough for the day, so I found the "estación del autobuses" and caught a bus into León. I was so glad I did as the Camino followed the road all the way in, along the highway through industrial sprawl, which looked extremely hard and boring!
I found the albergue in León, a nice place in an active monastery, run by volunteers as are many of the albergues. I reserved a bed for Angi before setting out to find food. Angi and I met on the street luckily; she had made it, tired and hot but feeling ok! I found León very confusing, unlike Burgos which I found easy to navigate. We got very lost trying to find a place for dinner and ended up just getting some fast food before going back to the albergue for an early night. I decided that I would have a rest day the next day, as I don´t know what is wrong with my shin. I´ll try resting for a day or two and hopefully I´ll be fine for the walk from Astorga on to Santiago. Astorga is where the plains stop and the walk starts getting pretty again, which I´m really looking forward to!
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Alex
non-member comment
Medicine is expensive, isn't it? We haven't even started on our trip, and already our suitcase is half-full of gauze etc. Jodie had an operation semi-recently, and we need to take care of it while we're away.