8c and raining when we set off so its rain gear on and walk. Walked mainly on my own as I only left at he alberque at 8.15am. The girls all like to set out early so I let them go first. I spoke to a nice German couple at breakfast and the woman ask me whether I was looking for god walking the camino. Err... It was 730am so in my half asleep state I said I don't know. She then said she is looking for god and she thinks that sometimes while walking on her own she "saw" god. The conversation is not something I am prepare to carry on that early in the morning so I made an excuse to leave
The walk to Fromista is next to the Canal Castilla and the 6km walk was very pleasant. Fromista is famous for on of the most perfect Romanesque church in the whole of Spain - Iglesia San Martin so I went to check it out and also to get out of the rain a little. It's pretty impressive i must say
After Fromista we start the ugly bit of the meseta all the way to Leon. Walking next to the highway. 4km from Fromista brought us into a small little town called Probacion de campos and I made a stop for my usual tortilla con patatas and hot chocolate. It was good to get out of the never ending rain for a bit. Met a Romanian woman Anka who now lives in the USA. She has massive blisters in both feet so was walking very slowly. I slowed to walk with her for a bit because she said she had used a tour company to arrange her camino and they arrange her hotels everyday and tell her where to walk everyday and also arrange for her to have dinner at the hotel every night. She said she liked it but she is also missing out of the interaction with other pilgrims because she is eating in hotels on her own every night. She was quite happy that I walked with her for a bit. I had to leave her as she was too slow and bumped into Gina again so me and Gina walked the 10km to Villacalzar de Sirga together. In the rain! We did well, 10km in 1h45mins so we made a stop at the local bar for a bite to eat and 2 glasses of wine to warm ourselves
Bumped into the father and daughter team of David and Destiny at the bar and had a wine with David. A Czech girl called Ivana then joined us and we had another wine with her too. Also had a nice piece of lovely cheesecake :)
After that we visited the Knights Templar church of Santa Maria la blanca. We are now in the Knights Templar region of Spain and they were the traditional protectors of pilgrims before they were disbanded by the King of Spain because the king feared that they were gathering too much power and too much wealth.
The rain hasn't stopped the whole day and it got even heavier when we left the church so I decide to walk the 6km to carrion really really fast to get it over and done with so I walked the last 6km in 1 hour
Got into Carrion and the first alberque that we saw at the edge of town has a room with own bathroom for €44 so without hesitation me and Gina said we will take it because we both felt so miserable after walking in the rain for 7 hours!
It was Line's birthday today so after drying ourselves and having a really hot shower we went out to the town with our blistered feet to look for the girls. We were not sure where they will be so we asked every peregrinos and finally bumped into them in the street. They arrived early so they picked a restaurant to have dinner
Since it was Line's birthday and we had such a hard time walking today I ordered a bottle of La Rioja Reserva for €24 to cheer myself up. Had mushrooms with garlic for starter, roast pork knuckle for main and again skipped dessert since I was so full. It's one of the best pilgrim meal we had so far and it was really nice
Back in the alberque we lined our wet socks and wet shoes near the heater to try and dry it but the heating was only on for 2 hours. After the usual foot care and foot run its time to bed at 830pm
Tmrw is a hard beginning of 17.5km of nothing, no village, no fountain in between so we bought food to bring with us and more water. On top of long stretches we have to carry more weight. Urghhh!!
Line proposed a 30km day and I said with my 2 new blisters and wet shoes I am not sure I could make 30km so we shall decide tmrw. 
2 comments:
Good luck! Hope you have enough water for the 30kms. E
Liz, Thuy and I reckon the German woman was hallucinating from dehydration when she saw God
b
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