Day 9: Grañón to Villafranca Montes de Oca, gingerly

The main street in Grañón.

I took this picture yesterday.  This morning, we left town at 5:30 AM with headlamps on.  We'd made reservations at a nice sounding albergue in Villa Franca Montes de Oca, almost 30 kilometers away, and wanted to get a head start before the sun got too high in the sky.

Finding Camino waymarkers isn't easy in the dark, but we were aided by the fact that there were two groups of pilgrims with headlamps ahead of us.  Even though they were just pinpoints of light, they gave us a clue when the path would take a turn.

You have now entered Castilla y Leon

It was still dark when we came came across this sign saying that we'd left Rioja and were now in Castilla y Leon.  It's going to take days to cross this province.  The itinerary is going to look something like this: one or two days getting to the beautiful medieval city of Burgos.  After that a number of awful days crossing the Meseta, the boiling hot high plains.  The prize is the city of Leon.  If all goes according to plan, we'll stay at the Parador that Martin Sheen and the other actors in "the Way" treated themselves to.  (A Parador is a luxury government run hotel in a historic building.)

Anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself.  Rioja may be famous for wine, but the further we walked the fewer grapes we saw.  By the end, it was primarily wheat fields.  As we walked into Castilla y Leon, there were Sunflower fields as well as wheat.

Wheat, Women, and Sunflowers.

Back to the Camino.  Hitting the road at 5:30, my feet were on fire from yesterday's blisters.  The more I walked, the less my feet hurt.  I think that's a natural reaction to pain.  You block it out.  Later in the day, we'd stop and sit, and when we restarted, the phenomenon would repeat itself.

Spain is a country that stays up late, especially on Saturday nights.  Sunday mornings can be a very challenging time to get a cup of coffee, even in Madrid.  This morning was no exception.  We hoped to get a cup of coffee in one of the small towns that we were going to limp through, but town after town was asleep.  We trudged through the centers of 3 towns before we saw a single old man awake.

Finally, we reached the town of Belorado.  We'd been walking for close to four hours and all conversation had stopped.  The cafe we picked had nothing gluten free to eat, so we ate all of our leftover chorizo, dried fruit and nuts.  I was not in a good mood, but what a huge increase in energy!

Amber waves of Wheat (contains gluten)

Yes, much of the day was spent walking through fields, but periodically, we'd come across some amazing historical stuff.  Next to the tiny town of Tosantos, we saw this abandoned hermitage carved into the side of a mountain: Ermita de la Virgen de la Peña (Our Lady of the Crag).  The ancient cave dwellings were once home to hermits.  Look closely at the holes cut out from the mountains surrounding the hermitage below.

Ermita de la Virgen de la Peña

That's it, behind the wheat.

Most of the way, we were blessed with a low cloud cover, almost fog, making for cool, if humid, conditions.  It didn't burn off until noon, and then the trip got really hot and tedious.  Fortunately, the early start meant that we would arrive at Villafranca by 1:30, after eight hours of walking.  We'd discussed moving on further, but with that midday heat, we stuck to the original plan.

3.6 kilometers outside of Villafranca, we came across the remnants of Monasterio de San Feliz de Oca from the 9th century.  As you can see, there isn't a lot left of it, but hey, it's historically significant.

What's left of the Monasterio de San Feliz de Oca from the 9th century

We're in a fabulous albergue that's built into a very nice hotel.  The owner walked the Camino and wanted to do something for his fellow pilgrims.  For once, I'm not in a top bunk!  (The WiFi is painfully slow.)  They have a bar and gluten free beer!

Tomorrow's walk starts with a multi hour 600 foot climb through the mountains, so our next step is to buy groceries so we all don't get super "hangry" before we find a town with coffee.  Tina and Karin are talking about starting even earlier than we did today.  You can read about it when Tina updates the blog tomorrow.