Day 18: Carrion de los Condes- Teradillo de los Templarios (27 kms)

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.

Backpack stop

Which way?

"I'm on the Road to Nowhere" -- the song from Talking Heads is playing in my mind as I walk this endless stretch

We meet again at Calsadilla de la Cruzada -- David and Lisa from Germany, cutest couple on the Camino -- Lisa, it's Ryan Gosling

Cloudy skies lead the way to Teradillo de los Templarios

 

Warming our feet

Dinner with the Men in Black from Gilroy, California

Day 17: Boadilla del Camino - Carrion de los Condes (25 kms)

How can this day be so different from yesterday? Today we start out at 9:30 am with the temperature at -1 degrees.  The overcast sky is a uniform slate grey.

We pass beside a canal and arrive at Fromista in an hour and a half. I buy some churros at a sidewalk wagon, 6 pieces for 2 euros. The vendor adds in an extra one -- una regalo, he says.  My sister and I enjoy the churros together with a cafe con leche, although churros dipped in a cup of chocalate is more appropriate, of course.  We take a look inside the Iglesia San Martin in Fromista.

Afterwards, the way continues on a long straight expanse of gravel-packed road right beside the highway.  It starts raining at 2 pm and the road continues straight on, and the sky remains an overcast slate grey. Finally, after 20 kilometers of road, I see Carrion de las Condes in the distance. Another 30 minutes, under a drizzly sky and we are there. It is 5 pm. 

The Albergue Santa Maria in Carrion de las Condes is manned by Padre Koldo and Sister Maria. We attend mass at the Iglesia Santa Maria at 7 pm where Padre Koldo is the celebrating priest. We run into him later after a pilgrim dinner at a local cafe and right in time before the albergue curfew at 9:30 pm, and ask him about the gospel reading, which, since it was in Spanish, we did not understand. He says that it is the story of doubting Thomas, who, when told by the apostles that Christ was resurrected, said that he would only believe this if he himself could touch the wounds in Christ's palm and sides. The Lord appears to him and lets him touch His wounds and Thomas falls to his knees and says "My Lord and my God."  One needs not see to believe. 

In the space of 16 days on the Camino, we have gone through the four seasons. One day it is a sunny blue sky summer, the next a rainy pouring grey day autumn, then a wintry driving snow comes followed by a chirpy blossomy spring. On the Camino, you take each day as it comes, however it comes.

The Camino passes beside a canal

Canal de Castilla, Fromista

Iglesia de San Martin, Fromista

 

Sculpture on the Autovia A-67 (Fromista-Marcilla)

 

Statue at the approach to Carrion de los Condes

 

Iglesia Santa María del Camino, Carrion de los Condes