Startpoint: Fromista; Endpoint: Calzadilla de la Cuerza; Distance walked: 36km; Steps taken: 45,184; Conditions: started off raining, brightened up after while, turned into a scorcher of a day, then rained again.

Big news: I’ve just been served a

pint

of beer! In a pint glass! Without even asking for it! I just asked for “uno cervasa” and she pulled a Carlsberg pint glass from under the counter, filled it up, handed it to me asked for €2.20 in return. I would think I’ve died and gone to heaven, except they don’t serve food for another hour and a half and I’m bloody starving!

Long long day today and it didn’t start well. We were warned yesterday evening that two lads in our room were terrible snorers. Not true. I didn’t hear any noise from either of them, and when I woke up, they’d both packed and gone, silently and without disturbing a soul, but…

There was one crazily terrible snorer in the room and they were in the bunk under mine. It sounded like a tractor farting tubas and lasted right through the night. At one stage, the little bag of goodies I keep under my pillow (passport, watch, camera, wallet, coins) slipped through the rails of the bunk and fell to the floor with a loud bang, six inches from the snorer’s head. It gave the room peace for about five minutes. It was a complete accident with unintended positive results. Really, it was. Totally accidental.

I had a bad morning this morning. After the snoring and bag dropping, I somehow nodded off and ended up sleeping late. I was the last person in the room to wake up. I checked my phone and realised I’d had it plugged into a dud power-outlet all night, so it was about to die. Then I checked my trekking pants, which I’d washed the day before and realised they were still wet. Then I noticed I was missing the lid off my bottle of ‘all-purpose soap’ and it had leaked all over my washbag. I went to the showers to find the lid, and was successful, but apparently peering into a shower and groping around for the lid is not good practice when somebody else is using it. People can be so sensitive. Then I went back to the dorm and started to pack my bag. After I few minutes, I noticed that the nozzle of my water-bladder was open and it had leaked all over the floor. When I finally got down to the kitchen, they’d finished serving breakfast and I was told I would have to go hungry for being so late. It was not a good morning.

I returned to my life of crime. While the hostel-manager’s back was turned, I grabbed a lump of bread left on the sideboard after breakfast and stuffed in my pocket before hitting the road. As I’d paid €2.50 for the breakfast and the lump of bread was probably worth about €0.25, I don’t think I need to feel guilty. The heavy rain softened the hard crusty bread as I tore at it with my teeth while walking.

Today was one of those days with a difficult choice. The guidebook that everybody else is using (John Brierley?) recommends a short 20km walk into Carrion de los Condes, as the next leg is a 17km ‘long flat section with little shade’ and without a hostel, shop, fountain or anything. As I walked the first 20km, I bumped into a Spanish man who’d learned his English as an exchange student in Dublin. He warned me of the seventeen kilometer desert that awaited us. He’d done the Camino before, by bicycle, and talked of this leg of the Meseta with fear and awe. He was planning a long day of rest in Carrion before tackling it first thing in the morning, before the sun got hot. Some people, he told me, do it at night. The road is so straight, flat and boring there is nothing to miss, except heat exhaustion and dehydration.

However, my guidebook is a much simpler tome. A lightweight book of (often inaccurate) maps. It mentions stocking up on food and water before leaving Carrion, but nothing more. After a croissant, a cafe-con-leche and an orange juice in Carrion, I decided to push on. It seemed a shame to stop walking before noon.

I added a 500ml bottle of water to my load and went into a bakery to get some carbs. I pointed at a soft, sweet looking bun and left satisfied I was well prepared to cross the desert everyone feared so much.

I paused briefly while I was leaving Carrion to adjust my pack. I inadvertently featured in the photos of some French pilgrims. I apologised, but they indicated it wasn’t a problem. ‘You are now part of our Camino’, one of them said, laughing. ‘Yeah, and you’re a part of mine, pal’, I muttered to myself as I scribbled his description in my notebook. ‘You’re a part of mine’.

The first 5k of the desert walk were a doddle. I could have been in any county in Ireland: small fields of crops, hedgerows and a long flat straight road in need of some repair. It would be perfect for (irish) road bowling, I thought, wishing I had a small cannonball handy. I hummed ‘Ireland’s Call’ to myself as I marched along.

The sun was hot, so I took out my trekking pants and hung them from the bag by buttoning the top button of the trousers around the top handle of the bag. I didn’t bother doing up the fly, cause that’s the way I roll. I’m a wildman! My unzipped pants flew behind me in the sunny breeze as I strode confidently into the desert.

The sun got hotter as the afternoon moved on. I overtook my shadow and passed it on my right. I went to put on my sunglasses, and only noticed then that the right lens was missing. As the sun was on my left, I thought it was quite a useful adaption. I had protection on my left and full visibility on my right. I may bring out a range of tinted monacles targetted at people who only walk in one direction.

[Just received second pint; only 30 minutes to dinner]

About 13k through the desert, I took a rest at a small shaded place. I removed my shoes and socks and they flies swarmed around them. I don’t know what the flies wanted – the shoes and socks were nasty. Seriously nasty.

I took my sweet soft bun from my bag and oh! what a disappointment! It was not soft, it was not sweet, it may not even have been bread. In a cunning trick of baking artiface, my snack was made entirely of crust! A hard thick tasteless crust encompassing an empty centre containing only air. Alas, there was no rain to soften the bread this time. I forced it down my maw anyway. I threw the crumbs on the ground, hoping it would lure the flies away from my footwear, but even they preferred the sweat from my toes to the abomination of crust.

I arrived in Calzadilla and treated myself to a small hotel room, rather than risk the snorers in the hostel. They seem to have the same wifi provider as the last place, so who knows when this will be go online.

We’ve just been called for dinner, so I’m leaving my table in the bar (two Finnish ladies, one Frenchman, one South Korean lady who lives in San Francisco and a Dutch lady.

***

My dinner company was a Belgian girl, an Italian girl and a Spanish guy. They took the piss out of me for staying in the hotel rather than the hostel. Caring less is too much effort at the moment.

My Mum and Dad just called to check my progress. My Dad says he misses the Camino, like one might miss a sore tooth that’s just been pulled.

Buen Camino