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Published: October 22nd 2017
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Geo: 42.3413, -3.70291
The two women in the beds next to us were noisy. One of their phones rang in the middle of the night and then they started packing at around 6:00. We were hopeful that they would exit quickly and we could go back to sleep until we saw them folding their underwear! There was no hope for sleep so we got up and went to the dining room where we had yogurt and a peach.
We were in the street by 7:30 (also in the dark) and had put on our raincoats and rain covers for our packs because it was drizzling. We started out with Matthew and Layla and ended up taking a wrong turn because we saw a lot of pilgrims on a path. They suddenly stopped and turned around and we realized we had blindly followed them. This is a problem in the dark.
We then met up with Landon and Cecelia from Vancouver and we hiked with them to the first town, Granon. We stopped for one coffee and took off our rain covers but kept our jackets on for several more kilometers for the warmth.
Though the hamlets were frequent, there were no services because
they were either too small or because it was Sunday. We hiked several kilometers with Eric and Craig and soon found ourselves in Belorado, 14 miles from Santo Domingo. We were really ready for lunch and a stop.
The entrance to town was quite ugly but the old town was very nice. The Municipal Albergue looked really nice.
We were searching for a lunch stop and a couple of locals directed us to the town square where some type of race finish was set up and the clock was saying 4 hours+ had passed and no one had finished!
We found a nice restaurant with tables overlooking the square but out phone was down to 1% so in order to take more pictures, we needed to plug out phone in. We purchased a couple of beers to go along with our ham & cheese sandwich and Fritos!
After lunch, we made our way back to the Camino and followed it out of town past many colorful murals. Most pilgrims were staying in Belorado, but we had reserved a couple of beds in the next town, Tostanos, 4.9 kms further.
We only saw one pilgrim between Belorado and Tostanos. When we got to Tostanos,
Koko mountain track
Note the track leading up to the top! we found our albergue but when we said we had a reservation, there was a lot of confusion. We said we booked by WhatsApp and then they found our names that had been scratched out! Luckily, they gave us the last two beds. The Albergue was very primitive with bunk beds around the sides of the room and also right in the middle. We were not thrilled but we're happy to have beds. We took out showers, washed clothes, took a stroll through town (not much there) and settled in the patio where FaceTimed Bligh. We got to catch up with Bligh and Brennan. It was quite chilly so we went into the bar and met Dave & Jen from the UK (near Stonehenge. They had already eaten so we ordered the "pilgrim meal" of green beans, lentil soup, yummy meatballs with frites, local tomatoes and watermelon. Very good! While we were still chatting with "the Brits", we met three women from Denmark who joined us from the Parochial albergue. They were hilarious and needed to get back to their place for the communal dinner. One of them had to sleep outside in a playground on one night of the
Camino.
We closed the bar down and went back to the dark dorm room where we were the last ones in bed. There was some snoring but we must be getting used to it since we both slept pretty well.
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