When my phone finally updated yesterday, it said I had walked 18kms. Camino Ninja posted the route as 19kms. It doesn’t matter. It was a lovely walk.
Today I walked mainly through vineyards. It wasn’t as busy as a few days ago so I walked a good deal of the time alone. I had breakfast, a coffee and a croissant for a little under 4 euros, in Najera by the river, where there was a gathering of pilgrims with lots of conversation. Two of us spent a good deal of time chatting to K.D. Field, a published author, who has three novels based on stories from her Caminos. She was heading off to a book fair in Madrid because one of her novels has been translated into Spanish. I may have mentioned her before. She is from Seattle and has moved permanently to Galicia.
I left Najera alone and had another lovely walk to Azofra where I had lunch with two other pilgrims. My order was a simple salad with no wine because I planned on walking further. Well the Camino offered me a bus stop and a tired man from Germany. We finally realized that the bus didn’t come on Saturday so since he was feeling a little ill and I didn’t feel like walking another 10kms after the 15kms I had already done, we decided to split a taxi to Ciruena. I thought after yesterday’s 19kms I might be able to manage 25kms but it was sunny and warm with a few more ups and downs so I caved and helped out an ill pilgrim. This is what happens on the Camino.
I haven’t posted about dinner last night. The Albergue offered a meal but the hospitalero just ordered what you wanted from one of the two restaurants in town. It was so slow and so disorganized that I went to bed and slept through to 6:00am.
Tonight dinner is spaghetti with salad and wine. The accommodation, Casa Victoria, is peaceful and I will walk into Santo Domingo de la Calzada tomorrow and figure out how to get to Belorado about 22kms further on. My faith is in the Camino. It’s got me this far. Buen Camino