The Roaming Rountrees

We sent Rex’s pack ahead again. Unfortunately, lightening the load hasn’t changed his pain level. But until he sees a doctor, I didn’t want him adding his pack weight again when we are walking.

We started the day exhausted from lack of sleep and it was a very cold morning (39 degrees). We’ve begun thinking we don’t have the cold weather clothes needed for October in northern Spain. We will need to buy a couple extra base layer items in Burgos before the next phase of the hike. 

Patience and tolerance is being tested for both of us right now.  Last night we were in a large albergue which included a smaller group of Italian men traveling together.  This group of young men had not been taught basic consideration of others. When they came into the dorm in the afternoon while several were napping (including Rex and I) they were loud, throwing around their packs and boots, then they began singing and hollering across the dorm. Ugh! Then this morning at 5:45a one of their alarms sounded like a siren for over a minute.  Once it was turned off, they got up, turned the bright room light on and loudly began packing their things to leave. There were only 5 of them out of the 24 in the room. I couldn’t believe it. I took a deep breath, in and out, counted to 10 and then did it again, and again, and again. 

The walk today was beautiful. We left the rolling farmland and climbed for much of the morning a path lined by thick, almost jungle-like trees which provided a nice change of scenery and kept us shaded and cool all day as we hiked.

Once we arrived at our Albergue we n Agés, our people-tolerance tanks near empty from the night before, we walked into the large sleeping area to select our bunks only to find a large group of Korean pilgrims had strewn their stuff everywhere making it difficult to get to our top bunks and settle in. Cultural differences are very noticeable to us lately. Common courtesy seems to be seriously lacking – or maybe it’s our American ideal of common courtesy?  Either way, we’re excited for a few days off the trail in a hotel room in Burgos to reset. 

Once settled in, it was shower time. The shower was possessed… it would go cold or hot whenever it wanted. It started perfect, then after getting all soaped up, it would scald, making you jump back and wait, so then it would be freezing. Ugh. How can I rinse off?  Grrrr. As the shower head rained down it also sprayed upward from a leaky seal around the shower head drizzling our towels and dry clean clothes. This happened to both of us. Some serious maintenance and s needed here. I am not in the right mindset for this at all. 

What to do when everything seems to be going wrong or is just harder than it should be?  Find the closest bar and have a drink! It was cold outside so we selected a table inside. When a small group came in and said they wanted food, I was told to stand and give up the table. I am a paying customer and was there first. The bar owner wasn’t nice at all. She didn’t try to reseat us. Merely barked and shoo’d me away. Wow!  We finished our drinks and left. 

We’ve really enjoyed the communal dinners each night at most of our albergues. They are usually cheaper than going to a restaurant and definitely more convenient. You typically pay 10-12€ per person and you eat what they serve you. Pretty simple. The communal dinner didn’t turn out to be a o communal after all.  There were about 30 people dining. We sat at a table for four and met a lovely couple from the UK. When the meal started we were served soup, then the sides and main were brought out to the large table. There they stopped. We sat patiently expecting to be brought smaller serving platters of the dishes and when they didn’t arrive, we asked where our servings were. The hostess said that everything had already been brought out and needed to be shared. Everything was placed on the table where the huge group of Korean pilgrims were seated. They ate everything!  There was nothing else. To be honest, much of the blame needs to be placed on the hostess for not explaining this and not allowing it to happen. If you serve food to my table, I’d expect it to be intended for my table. Our table mate who was fluent in Spanish expressed our concern over a 12€ bowl of soup and a single chicken leg, but wasn’t making much progress with the hostess. They served all the food they had and couldn’t just make us more. We were offered a special ice cream cone for the misunderstanding. 

What is the Camino trying to tell us?  I think it is time to make a change in how we book our lodging.  We’ll look to book albergues with smaller rooms or fewer beds per room. The giant barracks-style rooms with 30-40 beds are not for us anymore – been there, done that. 

This too, shall pass. Today was just not our day. No matter what, we will keep moving forward. We will not stop until we reach Santiago. We know this is supposed to be hard. Nothing worth achieving is ever easy. We expected the physical challenge of walking 562 would be our toughest test. We never expected the time off the trail would be even harder at times. 

Tomorrow is a new day!

Day 17 – Sept 22, 2022 – Cirueña to Redecilla del Camino (16.88 km / 10.5 miles)

Day 18 – Sept 23, 2022 – Redecilla del Camino to Belorado (11.74 km / 7.3 miles)

At the start of the day, we had walked 234 km or 145 miles in our journey.  The steps are starting to blur together and we are finding it difficult to even remember where we were the night before. 

We walked close to the N120 highway today next to harvested wheat fields and sad sunflowers. The landscape is so different from the gorgeous mountains and sweet villages from miles before. 

We are staying in Belorado in a nice semi-commercial albergue. It has its own restaurant and bar on premise and it even has a pool. However, it was much too cold to swim. We opted not to stay in the dorms tonight and booked two beds in a four bed mixed room.  No top bunk for Rex tonight!

I finally got pizza for dinner tonight. Yippie! It was worth the wait. We got two personal sized pizzas and both came out in wood fired oven perfection. They were served with their own cutters. We’d never seen this before and enjoyed the satisfying crunch as we cut into them. We left happy with full bellies. 

Day 19 – Sept 24, 2022 – Belorado to Villafranca Montes de Oca (11.80 km / 7.33 miles)

We woke up later today since the mornings are now much cooler as it we get into late September. The temperatures still get to the low 80’s (26 Celsius) in the afternoons.  When it is over 70 degrees my hiking performance deminishs greatly.  So starting early has been a must up until now. 

We are deep into farm land now. Except for the grape vineyards, all the fields have been harvested, so we don’t know what was planted there previously except for a few random sunflowers. The sunflower fields must have been beautiful at the height of their season. It is beautiful walking through the rolling hills with fields all around us, but our photos are just not doing justice to what our eyes are seeing, so we’ve slowed down on the photo taking. 

With 3 km left to go, we began to climb. For nearly a km we walked steeply through vineyards and harvested hay fields. There was very little shade today. At the very top we spotted a few shaded benches and concrete recliners. I know the description doesn’t sound appealing, but those concrete recliners were so comfortable and appeared at the perfect time. Rex even attempted a little nap. 

As we walked into the city of Cirueña, we immediately noticed it had very few services. There were a lot of Se Vente (for sale) signed on apartment buildings and it was eerily quiet. Rex thought it felt post apocalyptic. Had something happened in this town that scared off all its residents?  Maybe the one employer in town shut down?  It was very strange, but we wound our way through overgrown weedy sidewalks and eventually found our albergue. It looks like we’ll be staying in tonight, since there isn’t anything in town to go explore. We have a private room this time, so hopefully we get a good night’s sleep. 

Today started out as a great day.  Our feet felt the best they’d been in a long time.  Learning our lesson from the day before, we had gone to the grocery store last night and purchased 2nd breakfast and lunch, so we were stocked with food and ready to go. 

I developed another blister. This time on the pinky toe of my right foot the other day. We’ve taken to calling her Babette. After Rex performed another  blisterectomy she quieted down. She doesn’t call too much attention to herself, so we just carry on in silence. 

About halfway through our 16+ km day, I felt a sharp stinging pain on the tender underside of my left arm. Son of a bitch, I just got stung by a bee! You’ve got to be kidding me!  As the pain in my arm radiated, swelled and turned red, Rex got into his med kit and gave me a Benadryl as a precaution. I am not allergic to bees. But since we didn’t actually see what it was and there was no stinger left behind, we thought it prudent to treat early rather than chase a possible reaction.  My arm hurt like hell, but the upside was I didn’t notice my feet hurting anymore!

About 30 minutes later, the Benadryl kicked in.  Oh boy. I believe I sleepwalked the rest of the way into town. 

During our rest day yesterday, we reassured ourselves this isn’t a race. We don’t have a set date we have to be done, so we can and should take our time. We don’t have to do 20+ kilometers a day. We are blessed with freedom. Most folks walking the Camino need to get back to their jobs, families, or school.  They have a hard date and a return ticket. Since we don’t have either., we can take it slow. So, we set the alarm and went to sleep only to be awoken by a party outside the window at 5a. 

So we got up and set out in the dark of the early morning in search of a bakery (panadería) to have our first breakfast of coffee/tea and bread, we found the city quiet after the festivities the night before. Nothing was open. Even the supermarkets opened later than usual due to the holiday. We were in trouble. Here we are setting out for our 12 km hike this morning with only the emergency energy bars in our packs and one bar I saved from breakfast the other morning. Three bars in total. We were lucky enough to pass by a supermarket on the outskirts of town, but it hadn’t opened yet. Do we wait the 45 minutes for the store to open, or do we put 3 more kilometers behind us?  We sat on a bench and ate one of the bars, then got up and kept walking. There was nothing between Logroño and Navarrete but lovely countryside views. At about halfway, we sat on a shaded bench and ate the second bar. We shook our heads knowing how stupid we were for not going to the store last night assuming something would be open this morning. Quieting the hunger monster, we set out again. Under pure determination, we rolled into Navarrete and found our Albergue, checked in, dropped our packs, kicked off our shoes and left in search of food. The bar’s pintxos had been picked over so there wasn’t much left to choose from. But we were so hungry we weren’t picky. We had a ham sandwich, which consists of half a small baguette cut in half, with a small drizzle of olive oil and one single thin slice of Serrano ham smashed between them. Amazingly simple and quite good.  Down right delicious when you are as hungry as we were!

The bar owner must love the Beatles because the speakers were filled with Beatles tunes on repeat. In the time it took to have our sandwiches and a small pastry with two beers, we must have heard “Hello, Goodbye” five times. 

With bellies full, we explored the Iglesia Nuestra Senora de la Asunción (Our Lady of the Assumption Church) right next door to the restaurant. While weathered on the outside, the inside was extremely ornate and decorated in gold behind the altar. We stopped for a bit to admire the craftsmanship that went into constructing this beautiful building. It is quite an accomplishment given the tools and construction methods of the time.