Today we walk from Santo Domingo de Calzada to Belorado, a 22.4 kilometer hike. We were up early and had breakfast in Santo Domingo and walked out of town at about 7:15 AM, in the dark. Unfortunately, we couldn’t see the Camino directional signs and started to follow a group of Italians who seemed to know what they were doing. Turns out they didn’t have a clue about what they were doing or where they were going. We followed them on a circuitous route out of town until we realized they were lost. And if they were lost, we were lost. When the sun finally came up over the horizon we could see the Camino off in the distance to our left, across a busy road. We bushwhacked across a hay field and crossed the road and we were back on the Camino. We added about 3 kilometers and an extra 45 minutes to the day’s walk, but that’s what happens when you follow a bunch of Italian pilgrims who are directionally challenged.
This message was at the foot of an iron cross about 4 kilometers from Santo Domingo. This bible verse is intended to remind all pilgrims why that are making this pilgrimage. We stopped and said a prayer for Anna.
This is the view as we approached our first stop of the day, Granon. We had a second breakfast in Granon. I had a grande fresh squeezed orange juice and a chocolate croissant.
As I was walking out of Granon I inhaled a smell that took me back to the days of my youth in Illinois. I heard a squeal and knew exactly what was in that building. You guessed it! It was a jabon farm. That is ham, for those of you who don’t speak Spanish. Mystery solved as far as how they can serve so many ham and cheese sandwiches without any pigs. There is a web site, http://www.ham and cheese sandwiches on the Camino.com. They have a counter like McDonalds. Instead of bragging about the billions of hamburgers McDonalds has sold, this website brags about the billions of ham and cheese sandwiches they have forced pilgrims to choke down on the road to Santiago.
This is the view of the trail leading out of Granon and on to our next stop, Redecilla del Camino, a 4 kilometer hike from Granon.
This is a marker that is located on the Camino about 2 kilometers outside Granon. It marks the border between the provinces of La Rioja and Castilla y Leon. We will now be traveling in Castilla y Leon for some time.
As we were walking through Redecilla del Camino I took this picture. The flowers in Spain are amazing. It is like every village has a garden club and they fiercely compete over who can have the most colorful flower pots at their front doors and adorning their balconies.
This is a sign at the next stop along the Way, Viloria de la Rioja. The three amigos have come a long way, but we have a long way to go.
This is Javier and his ladder. Javier is my new BFF in Villamayor del Rio. As I was walking through this village I spied Xavier’s wife Maria spreading a tarp across the Camino under what looked like a chestnut tree. As I got closer I looked up into the chestnut tree and realized that Javier had used a ladder to climb up into the tree and then he climbed up even higher into the tree and was using a 20 foot pole to whack chestnuts out of the tree and onto Marie’s tarp. I went up to the base of the tree and yelled at Javier to get down out of the tree so I could have a WTF conversation with Javier and Marie. When I got Javier out of the tree the three of us had a little habla espanol. Again, if you don’t speak Spanish that means we had a chit chat in Spanish. It appears that Marie wanted some chestnuts to bake some sort of cookies. I told Javier and Marie that it is unbelievably dangerous to have Javier up in that tree whacking at the nuts. I asked them if they had a market in town. They nodded in the affirmative. I had Javier put away his ladder and I walked them down to the local supermarket. I bought them ten dollars worth of nuts and gave them an extra five dollars for a couple of ham and cheese sandwiches. They were thrilled and now I have two new BFFs in Villamayor del Rio. It’s amazing what you can accomplish with just a little bit of Yankee ingenuity and plain old fashioned horse sense.
On the outskirts of our final destination for the day, Belorado. Another pig farm.
A sunflower 🌻 along the Camino.
Art work on the window at the Alburgue Cuarto Cantones in Belorado where I am spending the night.
This is the sign at the check in desk at the alburgue. I love the line where it says never give up. That was Winston Churchill’s guiding principle.
I checked in at about 3:30, took a shower, did my wash and worked on this blog post. There is a pilgrim group dinner at the alburgue that will be starting at 7:30.
This is the crowd at the pilgrim dinner at the alburgue. I am sitting at a table with Tom from Ireland, Suke from England, and Richard from Canada.
I hope everyone is having a good day.
Goodnight from Belorado, Spain.
AbeAndMarkontheCamino 
Thank you, as always, got my quota of laughs for the day.
LikeLike