Half Way There

Carrion to Terradillos – 25.8kms

Everyone was up early today because this was the stage where the first village wasn’t for nearly 18kms.

This required breakfast before leaving at 6:30am, requiring me to be up even earlier. I don’t function well early so my conversation skills were nearly zero.

Stepping outside in the crisp air soon cured that and for some reason, my legs started moving, fast. Pretty soon I had left everyone else behind.

When I first started walking, in my headlamp, I could see this fine, white dust and I kept placing my sarong over my face because I didn’t want to be breathing whatever it was in. It took me a good five minutes to realise it was the fog!

Once I got over my Doh! moment with the fog, I turned my headlamp off and enjoyed walking in the dark. We were walking on the road and due to the time of the day, there were no cars so I was comfortably walking in the middle of the road.

I was setting a cracking pace and had already covered 10kms in 2hrs when I came upon this lovely oasis in the middle of nowhere.

It was fabulous sitting here enjoying a cafe con leche by myself, watching the sun come up across the field. I even got to listen to romantic music playing out of the food truck.

Pretty soon, me sitting there began attracting more people to sit. Others continued on. It turns out, there had been a man earlier on the trail popping out talking to people, encouraging them to stop at a food place after the one I stopped at, but he was talking to another girl when I went past so I had assumed he was promoting an Albergue. Many people listened to him and said later I had made the better choice.

I met Mike from Texas at this stop as he had been advised by friends who are a couple of days ahead of him to not be suckered in by the promotional guy and to stop at the first place.

The long distance across stretches of nothingness was still front and center, so we had to move.

It was stunning walking in the fog.

Texas and I chatted all the way to Calzadilla de la Cueza. What an incredible feeling it was to reach that first location as seeing the long distance in the book just seemed overwhelming. I think everyone else felt the same because there was such an excited feeling in the air.

There was still 8kms to go, it was 11am and the fog had burned off, making it a hot walk so it was time to set off again.

Outside of Calzadilla, there was an option to take a different route to the main one, slightly longer, but supposedly through a wooded area. We decided to do this one and Texas stupidly followed us.

As we left the main path, some other pilgrims called out to us and we waved them on, saying we were doing the “blue” route.

There was a tiny part that went through trees, but the rest of the path was rocky, uneven and fully exposed.

It was a relief to get back to the main road. (I think Texas was relieved to see other pilgrims!)

Ledigos was only a few kms from where we were all staying, but everyone was wiped by this point so there was a big group of us enjoying a drink at a bar, with most of us staying in Albergue Los Templarios.

We met a young man from Germany and I was chatting to him, discussing our ailments. He was telling me about his left foot and I laughed and I said tomorrow he would have issues with his right foot because of over-compensating. He looked at me and said “Exactly! What the f*#k?” It was said so seriously and matter of fact that we all burst out laughing.

Eventually, we knew we had to move, so started on the final stretch. Along the way, we saw a woman walking towards us, bashing her cane along the bushes and BC said, “I think that’s Jean.” Sure enough, it was.

Jean is 71 and I constantly say I want to be her when I grow up. She is hilarious. Unfortunately, Jean was recovering from surgery and instead of being able to walk the Camino with her husband as planned, she is supposed to be taking a taxi between destinations.

When we came across her, Jean had been walking from Terradillos, a good 4kms away due to not being able to organise a taxi. She was not a happy camper, so when she was offloading to us and had Texas come along and be all zen and “Camino provides” type talk, she looked at us and bluntly asked where we’d picked up this preacher. BC and I both laughed. Unbeknownst to poor Texas, Jean’s husband is a pastor!

We guided her to the highway to get her to her destination and finally arrived at our destination. My feet were done by this point and I hobbled to the room.

A shower, laundry and relaxing afternoon in the garden does wonders though. I felt much better by dinner and had a great laugh with Texas joining us.

It was a lovely evening and the first time I have seen a sunset since that night in Orisson nearly three weeks ago.

There was a bit of debate about the halfway point at dinner. According to the number of kms, we have now crossed the halfway point, but apparently there is a place coming up tomorrow where you can get a halfway certificate as that is the official halfway point. My response was the same as before – measurement in Spain is up for interpretation!