Tough day today! Grey skies, freezing cold and wind.
We start out at 7:40 am from Carrion de los Condes. It is bitterly cold at about 3 degrees. After a light breakfast at the albergue and a cafe cortado in town, we start out walking beside the highway. The Way continues on a gravel-packed road going straight across fields and seeming to end in the far-off horizon. The sky is grey and cloudy, the 20 kph wind blows directly into our faces adding windchill to the already freezing cold.
This flat lonely windy endless stretch lasts for 17 kms and takes us four hours to traverse. Finally, at 11:40 am, we spot Calsadilla de la Cruzada, and walk directly into a bar. I am starving and order a plate of lomo/pork cutlet. It usually comes with French fries but I ask the waitress to change it into rice instead, which is fine. I am totally missing rice.
We hang around for an hour to relax, chat with the other pilgrims there, have a sportsdrink and a coffee. Fully fortified, we brave the cold and wind again at 1 pm. The wind has not abated at all but instead gotten stronger to about 40kph wind from the front left side. We stop to rest again at Ledigos, an hour away, and finally arrive in Albergue Los Templarios, just before the city of Terradillo los Templarios at 4 pm. We are able to get beds in a 4 bed dorm room with its own bathroom. Oh, what luxury!
Here on the Camino, one really learns to remember to appreciate the simple things in life -- a warm clean bed, a warm meal, random acts of kindness-- the offer of a meal when you are extremely tired and hungry, a warm bed when you are cold, balms and ointments for your sore aching feet.
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| Backpack stop |
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| Which way? |
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| "I'm on the Road to Nowhere" -- the song from Talking Heads is playing in my mind as I walk this endless stretch |
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| We meet again at Calsadilla de la Cruzada -- David and Lisa from Germany, cutest couple on the Camino -- Lisa, it's Ryan Gosling |
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| Cloudy skies lead the way to Teradillo de los Templarios |
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| Warming our feet |
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| Dinner with the Men in Black from Gilroy, California |
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