Day 15 – Hontanas to Fromista

This is the first day of week 3. We have kept up our average of 100 miles a week and by the end of tomorrow should have reached halfway! Ha! Who said we couldn´t do this.

Anyway back to today. After yesterdays walking you´d have thought we´d take it easy. Not a bit of it!

Today we exited the Refuge at 7.30am. No catching us in the heat……..

As usual the first 10k went quickly to Castrojeriz. Quaint village on the side of a hill with an old ruined church/fortress/monastry on the top. After a while these things all begin to look the same. We briefly stopped, then continued. There was a sharp climb ahead and the sun was now beating down. Even earlier than yesterday. We struggled to the top to see more nothingness as far as the eye could see. We had 11 k to go to Itero del Castillo and food. Its at times like these that I begin to wonder what the hell am I doing this for. Oh and I had also got a ´pile´or haemorroid to contend with. Sore feet and a sore arse! Fantastic!

After a round about route passed another church ( the Camino has a habit of making you walk passed every religious building, and there are thousands of them!), wereached Itero. Food!!!

Having not learnt out lesson from yesterday we once again decide to go on another 8k to Boadilla del Camino. It gets dumber..

By 2pm we reached our goal ( or so we thought). Our Refuge for the night and a swimming pool, Great. Now where do we sleep. Ah more sardines. Crushed into these tiny rooms. Sod this I said. Lets go to Fromista. Its only 6k and its got a chemist so I can get something for my bum.

Alan seening my pain agreed. We stocked up on liquid and headed off. It was gruelling. This is the hardest bit i´ve done yet. We were completely knackered when finally we crawled into Fromista at 3.30pm. We´d covered 34k. Our longest haul yet. Tomorrow would Definitely be easier!

Got bunks in Refuge and now having well well earned beer.

I will return once I feel able!

This bloody well is the way of the Camino!!!

Day 14 – Burgos to Hontanas

As last night was overcast and grey we assumed the same would be the case this morning as thus walking for most of the day would not be a problem.

As a result we got up late, ate large breakfast and left around 8.30am.

We soon realised that today was a good day weather wise and we had decided that we were gonna walk 28k.

Everything began well. First 9 k in an hour and a half. Short stop for food at Tardajos then onward. We had been warned the we are entering the area of Spain called the ¨Meseita¨. This was a high plateau with nothing to see for miles and it got bloody hot quickly. How right they were. Nevertheless we soldiered on reaching Hornillos del Camino by 1pm. Usually we would have stopped here, but we decided to carry on… 12k to go.

Having lotioned up with our factor 65! we continued climbing up onto the Meseita. This was wierd. You could see for miles and miles into the horizon. The only problem was there was nothing to see. Just flat flat land. The ocassional tree and empty fields. Nothing else.

As the sun beat down we continued. Two dumb Scotsman in 30c plus. The vultures were circling overhead waiting for their next meal. If it was gonna be us they`d be feasting for weeks!

By now our feet were aching and the nothingness continued. It was almost like one of those scenes where you see some poor sod crawling on his hands and knees across the Sahara crying ´Water Water´!

eventually after three hours walking we suddenly saw our goal – Hontanas. We had made it!

Straight into the first bar and down went the beer.

Home for the night. Not a bad place either. The food was good and we ate with a sister /brother combo from The Netherlands – John and Louise.

As the bar shut at 10, it was our usual early night. A hard days graft but well worth the effort.

Oh and both the mighty Hibbes won ( which pleased young Al no end and so did the even mightier United stuffing Chelsea!

Adois amigos

New Friends – the Sequel!

The thing about running the Camino is you run out of friends, so you acquire new ones! Networking Si has got us with a new bunch of kids.

There´s Nick  he´s the Aussie with the Orange socks – looks like his legs have been tango´d but he is at least our size and a bit more. He´s just arrived in the pub after 8 hours walking and he started 10km further up the road, the wonderful town of Castrojeriz.

Castrojeriz was beautiful – it sneaked out of the morinng mist a big mother on the hill in ruins and the newer town below. There´s a fantastic church which had started life as a Mosque or certainly gave over a few moorish tendencies. The tower looked like a minaret (spelling?) with the light shining on it you could see that the window pointed towards Mecca, and it shows hgow smart these builders were back then.

But onto our new Friends. We´ve skipped through one group into a new set and we encountered 3 girls, an Aussie a kiwi and an American. Aweirder mix you couldn´t find, such is the way of the Camino. They kept telling us about the 3 Israeli guys who have a guitar – and Siom keeps thinking John Belushi but doesn´t want to be branded an anti-semitic. How do you explain you´re just have an animal house moment. I keep telling him its not anti semitc as they must be catholics if they´re on this gig, that our moslems or just kids out the army. One´s called Jacob, he seemed very charming.

We´ve also got a girl called Elisabeth in our company – she´s Danish. I wonder if she´s heard of that famous philospher that Lodge goes on about in Therapy. Good book that´it tells you loads about the Camino and also Tubby, the primary character of the book, has a dodgy knee which miraculously gets better after he rekindles his adolescent love with the Camino walking childhood sweetheart in the Catolico in Santiago.

 So Si´s lost the love of his Korean sweetheart, and now Francois the Parisien Pensioner with the  “slim top half and the fat legs” – her words not ours – is one stop back and he wont get to have a big beer swilling session with her until tomorrow night when she catches us up again.

Probably just as well as he had to run us to Fromista so that he could get to a Pharmacia. Let´s not go into dettails but he´s not ready to develop a relationship for a day or two!

We´ve become social butterflies and all this after our biggest walk yet.

New Friends and New Towns

Happy Birthday brother Tom – 50 not out – and we nearly managed to get 50% of the way before we eventually settled down after 32km here in Fromista. We´ve crammed three days into the last two so we´ll comfortably on schedule – notwithstanding the injuries we´re bound to pick up.

Si true to expectation had his first hangover today. It was so bad we decided to walk the furthest we´ve gone yet, again taking in the cruel heat. Its nearly 5pm here so I´m going to have this beer and sign out,

back later.