Day Frómista to Carrión de los Condes. 18.88km according to app. 19.18km with Phone GPS (minor detour). Was walking quickly. Which Fitbit doesn’t like 🙂
Weather: pleasant to warm
Terrain/: pretty damn flat, easy going
Shocked I only woke at 6:40, was hard to get to sleep
Bolted along. A little over 5.5km an hour for 3 hours 26 minutes, with only 4 minutes rest / stopping for photos.
It was a very boring walk, weirdly not many on the path, only passed a handful. Road was very long and straight, walking right beside it virtually the whole way. (I missed that there was an alt route). It kind of does the head in after a while. Esp when Fields are mostly yellow and only bits of green.
Arrived way to early at Albergue. While they let me in at 10:50, I wasn’t able to check in I’ll 11:30 (I was first).
Was left confused a couple of times when a nun came and asked me a question only in Spanish. Thankfully google translate eventually saved me (she wanted to know if a blanket was mine).
Lovely place, and 6€ for a single bed was great.
After showering, washing clothes and stuff I wandered around the corner and had a breakfast at 1pm ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Then met up with Erica, Ben, Karen & Susan for lunch (nice paella but seemed expensive). Showed them the ad for a horse & cart ride to the next village/town which interested them.
After that I just ambled around a bit, visited the supermarket & got bits for tomorrow.
I spent a bit of the afternoon hiding in the dining area away from the heat and honestly from people too. Had been feeling moody/moopy all day and didn’t fancy really interacting.
In the evening I attended fully my first mass of the trip, had a pilgrims blessing and was given a paper star to carry with me.
After church I ambled some more and I bumped into Ben, Susan & Karen again. Like a bad penny I keep turning up. We talked for a bit & got a class of wine (with a small free tortilla snack) and I got Ben to reserve me a spot on this horse & cart.
While it’s now 20€ and not the 15€ on the digital book I’m using, it’s seems like a unique thing to do. I could get the bus if I _really_ wanted, or I’m happy to walk the 17km stretch to the next town … but this is different.
I dashed back to make sure I was in for 21:30 just in case they closed the gate early. As it is when the nuns came to check in at 22:05, 3 people where missing from the room. One arrived at 22:24, the others are still missing.
From what I’ve read some of the albergues here are shut and won’t let you in. So no idea what is going to happen for the missing 2.
