Cirueña

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Taking the private room was the best idea so far. I slept through the whole night without having to worry about snoring neighbors, people waking up at 4am, ....
My internal alarm clock went off at 6am and I was ready to go. Thomas rolled over and stayed in bed a bit longer, so I decided to just get my pack ready and go outside to see the sun come up. A bit cloudy today but no worries I thought. We finally got our shoes on and headed back to the Camino around 8am. The idea was to walk the 23km to Santo Domingo, however there were a couple small towns with either a place to stay or a bus to move forward if he couldnt and I wanted to.

About 15min on the trail it started raining. First time walking in the rain. Every pilgrim stopped, got their rain covers and coats out and continued their walk while getting soaked by the Spanish showers.... Thomas and I decided to keep the spirits up and started singing and whistling, while getting as many people to smile. We passed a bunch of people and it worked well... talked a bit to some of our fellow walkers, had some people join in and all was good. Made it to the first town within an hour.... time for coffee and breakfast. The people we passed along the first part of the trail, kept coming in and all had smiles on their faces when they saw us, se we continued to sing with the music they were playing at the breakfast place....

By the time we were done our coffee and food the rain stopped and the sky opened up. First rainday on the Camino and first day I did not see the sun rise...
The moment the sun was out the trail was one big mud puddle.... making our shoes twice as heavy because of the hard clay sticking to the bottom and side of them. Because it was very muggy the wetness of the rain made room for a wetness of sweat... probably was 10 times worse than any other day... so we took it slow and took some breaks along the way. Thomas was also feeling worse and worse with every step he took, so we decided to find a place about 8km before Santo Domingo... which will leave us some time to check out that area tomorrow.

Upon arrival at Cirueña, we found ourselves in a ghost town. Hundreds of new apartment buildings, sitting there waiting for an owner, a beautiful park with pool, but no people to play in them... a bit weird at first but this was not a stopping point for us. We found an ad for a brand new hostel right beyond this ghost part of the town and decided to give that a try.

The hostel ended up being a newly built house which had 14 beds in 2 rooms, private shower and bathroom and a big table in a living area where a big meal would be served at a low prive tonight at 7pm... perfect. Since we arrived at 1230 we had a good afternoon to relax, read a bit, walk through town and plan ahead...

Sitting on a rooftop terras in the sun, I leave you now after another walk today...

See you all tomorrow. ?.

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