Day 11 - Belorado to San Juan de Ortega

 

The church at San Juan de Ortega (St John of the Nettles)

A very lovely day of 24km. It makes a huge difference if you can get away early. We're staying in prebooked bed and breakfast accommodation and breakfast hours tend to fluctuate.

Our hotel in Belorado - Hostel Punto B - was wonderful, one of the best we've struck so far. Our host was welcoming, witty and kind, and he served breakfast from 6am. Needless to say, we were there on the dot. There was a huge array of food on offer - ham and meat of all sorts, cheese, little tortillas, cake, fruit, coffee, tea, juice (but not a sign of cereal).

While we were scratching our heads deciding, he offered to cook us bacon and eggs - how could we refuse?

The early morning streets of Belorado, as pilgrims stumble out into the day.

We staggered out the door just before 6.30am with a few wrapped cakes in our pockets - we were sad to leave, but we were on a mission. 

Murals on the walk from Belorado.

It's a lovely walk out of the town, with murals lining the path and little plaques set into the footpath with the hand and footprints of various celebrities. We stopped and examined the one for Miguel Indurain (Spanish cyclist). We read a poster about Martin Sheen (star of the movie The Way) having his done, but we didn't spot it. 

Goodbye to Belorado.

In the cool of the morning we were keen to clock up a few kilometres and we knocked out the first eight in less than 1hr 40min, kilometre five taking only 11 minutes. We knew this wasn't going to last, but all our ailments seem to have settled down. We don't have one good knee between us, but Cathie's bad blister and my stretched hamstring had both settled down and we loved it.

The obligatory shadow photo as the sun comes up.

The sun reached us at about 7am, but it was still pretty cool, not much above 10 degrees. At a few minutes after 8am we found ourselves at Espinosa del Camino. They knew how to make a strong coffee and they had wifi, so we settled down for a little break. It wasn't a long day and we had a good start so we indulged in the luxury of a bit of a rest.

After we left that little oasis and then passed through the village of Villafranca de Montes de Oca, the climbing started and it was pretty relentless. I was thinking about tissue culture. Not what you grow in a petrie dish, but what careless pilgrims leave in their wake. Sadly, the path is littered with tissues, carelessly dropped after a nose blow or a quick pee. There are more tissues than there are cigarette butts and those are bad enough.

It's strange what you think about when things get a little harder. The path went relentlessly up, particularly for a couple of kilometres as we neared the fountain Fuente de Mojapan. A large number of cyclists who passed us early in the climb could be seen pushing their velocipedes as the going ahead got really steep and tough.

The view from the shelter, looking over the Sierra del San Millan..

Finally we came to the fountain, with its covered shelter. We'd worked up a good sweat on the climb, so it was nice to take a break. 

After that, the slope lessened and we walked in the shade of oaks and then pines for a period. 

Monumento de los Caidos.

We came to the Monumento de los Caidos. The stone covers the shallow graves of those who were executed without trial during the Spanish Civil War in 1936. 

The road ahead.

From there we walked down a dizzying descent, followed by a sharp climb that reared up before us. The surface was very rough - it wasn't the nicest few hundred metres of the day.

Although we were expecting shade for the rest of the day, we found ourselves out on a broad clay road which seemed to stretch on forever. We wanted to stop and have a bit of a lunch break, as we knew the dangers of just walking on. You can get pretty weary if you don't take breaks. Sadly, there were no towns left and we seemed doomed to along trudge without redemption.

The Camino sometimes provides in unexpected ways. Don't get me started on the reasons for this - I don't put it down to divine intervention.

Cold drinks and dancey music.

In this case I put it down to a sharp entrepreneur with bad taste in music. A man with a van had set up a little spot in the forest, from where he sold cold drinks, snacks and generally revived flagging spirits. A couple of days ago my pack had fallen from my bed to the tile floor and my scallop shell had snapped in two. The shell had travelled all the way from Golden Bay in New Zealand, but here I found a hand-painted replacement.

We invested in a very strange lemon drink, which turned out to be branded as a beer, but with less than one percent alcohol. It was cold and refreshing though, so we set off revitalised for our destination, which we reached before 1pm. 

You have to check in to the hotel La Henera, a couple of hundred metres down the street and Bar Marcel. We were checked in by a real charmer, with reasonable English (always makes it easier). We sat and had a boccadillo and a glass of lovely sangria and then wandered off to our room.

It's great. We did some washing, I showered, Cathie dozed in the bath.

I got set up in the common room where the wifi is strongest, went to the bar just over the fence and got a beer poured into a glass straight out of the freezer. By the time I got it back here, the beer was starting to freeze. It's great inspiration.

Since then, I've written this epistle, knocked off most of a second beer and feel a siesta coming on before the dinner back at Bar Marcel at 6.30pm (it's 4.15 now).

In lieu of breakfast tomorrow, we get given a packed breakfast lunch tonight and we can make a coffee in this room tomorrow. I think it's likely we'll leave early to get the cool hours before the sun comes up. It's 26km to Burgos, but apparently we can't check in until 4pm. We could make the detour to Atapuerca - it's a tempting option, but without knowing what we're going to see there I think it's unlikely we'll willingly add 2-3km to tomorrow's journey.

Next, it's an early dinner and probably an early night.

The best laid plans (and all that). We went down to Bar Marcelo for dinner and got tangled up with David and Scott from Melbourne, Anne-Marie from Ireland and Mary-Anne from the US. At one stage one of the staff came in and asked us to stop making so much noise. Really - it was a trans-Tasman reunion - we have a century or two of bonds to renew.

Later I had a long talk to Mike from Toronto, while Cathie chatted with Alma from Mexico and her partner from Spain. All in all it was a grand Camino evening. The food was great - black pudding for the first time in decades and it was lovely. The staff insisted on us upgrading to a regional wine a lovely tempranillo, but the whole thing had evaporated before we could finish drinking it. 

So here we are upgrading this blog before we sneak off to bed. Hello to all our old friends and Buen Camino to the new friends!

I almost forgot - the song of the day. You have to go back a long way for this. When my children were young (40 years ago), The Muppet Show was a highlight of the week. Now I'm in Spain, here's something from the Muppet Show that may or may not have anything to do with Spain: https://youtu.be/jNPS_xsHqDw

 

Here's today's photos: https://photos.app.goo.gl/YvBbnRTVdQjsvALP6

Here's today's Relive video: https://www.relive.cc/view/vYvEAXPj9wv