Shorter day. More excitement.
I woke up 5:15am, but put off getting up until 5:30am. I woke Sally. Within 5 minutes we were packed and out the door, leaving Becky to sleep in. We walked down the four flights of stair to the lobby/kitchen. Here we sorted gear, had yogurt, a cup of tea and left Sally’s pack for the transport service. We were out the door and padding through the streets of Santo Dominigo de Calzada. There were pilgrims in front of us and as we walked out of town across the bridge (see picture) more fell in line behind us.
Looking off the bridge was frightening. Not due to its height but for the total absence of any water. There was not a trickle. Not even any wet ground. This is spring. Spring runoff time. No water. Nada. Zip. Zero. None.
The temperature was colder than yesterday, 40° so we started in puffy coats, but there was no wind so they were quickly put back in our packs.
Today was a string of small towns. In 13 miles of walking we passed through 5; Granon one at 4.1 miles, then Redecillia del Camino at 6,5 miles, Castildelgado at 7.4 miles, Viloria de Rioja at 8.6 miles and Villamayor del Río at 10.2 miles before arriving in Belarado at 13.7 miles. Lots of chances for Sally to exercise her “Stop at every red chair” mantra. And we did. At our first stop we ate the food and Coke I was carrying. This made us sit away from the crowd at the food wagon tables. This is right at the start of town. We walked to the other end. Here they had a deck extending out providing a beautiful view of the fields to the west of town. We headed down the hill and up to the next town through these fields of waving grain. Here we missed the red chairs as they were off route a bit and we were walking and talking with some Austrailian friends, Tom and Nikki, the same two that helped us find each other on our mixed up rendezvous before Pamplona. Sally was dying for a Coke and Tom quickly announced he had just seen a coke machine, ran back and bought Sally a Coke. They continued on and we sat on the fountain while Sally gave herself a caffeine infusion.
Back on route we enjoyed the sun and had the wind at our backs, pushing us forward. We stopped in the next town at a table. Sally got a beer. Jay, the retired Lutheran minister walked up and sat with us. We hadn’t seen him for over a week. Now for the final three miles to Belarado. We walked the final 3/4 mile into town and found our albergue. Becky had been here for well over two hours and had reserved beds 9 and 12 for us. There was a line about 9 people deep to get into the albergue. It took us nearly an hour to get registered and pay our €30.
I guess i should have been more suspicious when I noticed the guy in the bunk below me was in his sleeping bag trying to sleep at 2:30 in the afternoon. We went to a restaurant for dinner, split a €13.50 pilgrim meal, walked to view the church and then returned to the albergue where I climbed into my bunk and started writing my blog. As a half hour passed I heard more talk about people being sick and soon came to realize the guy below me was sick and must have had a fever cause he couldn’t get warm and his friend in the top bunk next to me said he had just returned from the bathroom, now with a completely empty stomach. Alarm bells!!! I was about to be sleeping above and next to two very sick people. I left the room, found Sally and brought her up to date. She was drinking wine in the common room. With wine glass in hand, we took to the streets searching for another place to stay. We tried three albergues, all full, as we expected. At the fourth, a hotel we were turned away and we’re just getting ready to leave when Nikki walked in and asked what was going on. When we explained that we were in an albergue surrounded with sick people she tried to minimalize it as people with bad tapas-food poisening. People had fevers. Not food poisoning. She realized it might be more and suddenly exclaimed Tom had a triple room to himself that had two extra beds. She said she knew someone else with with an extra bed. She retrieved Tom from an outside table where a crowd was drinking. He insisted we come use his room, bring Becky and he would sleep on the floor. His niece started scolding him for being too kind and not thinking enough about his own needs. We discussed options for a few minutes then Tom walked us to his room in “Hostel B”. We pulled a folding bed out from under one of the beds and set it up and arranged the other beds. He gave us his room key and he left to do some more drinking. We went back to our “sick” albergue and while I packed up Sally’s pack and my pack Sally let Becky know of the plan. We met outside our hostel, hoping we had not exposed ourselves to what ever strain of flu they had.
We walked to Tom’s place and walked thru the lobby, headed for his room. It was up three floors. As we entered the room, one of the workers caught our attention and asked for passports. We were in a three person room, yet including Tom we were four and beyond the hostels limit. Sally took her and Becky’s passports to the front desk, thereby presenting the appearance of three people, Tom, Sally and Becky. Sally paid €25 for the beds and the host came up and added sheets and a pillow to the third bed. I sort of hid in the bathroom.
With all the logistics completed, we sorted our gear to straighten the mess we made in our hasty retreat. Once all was in order we relaxed, wrote, made a phone call to John Sanford and turned out the lights.
We were all asleep when Tom returned from carousing about 11:00pm. I answered the door. He came in apologizing for waking us. We reminded him this was his room to which he replied, “It is now OUR room”. He visited the bathroom and then was asleep within a minute of laying down in his bed. Hopefully, we avoided catching a nasty virus. We will know in the next week or two. Finger crossed for luck!
Big bridge, no water
Sunrise
From the first town terrace looking east
From the first town looking west
Us
One of many Camino statues along the way
Tom buys Sally a Coke
Lots of adjacent highway walking today
Belarado had amazing wall art
In Tom’s room
Nikki, Tom, Sally and Chuck
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