Hornillos to Castroheriz

Before I begin describing today's adventure I have to tell you about a very special dinner we had last night. Hornillos has a population of 20 so we had no expectations of a late night nor did we want one. But Jane ever our intrepid traveller suggested a cafe up the road for dinner that was meant to be good. We decided that rather then dine in ,where the flies were tedious we would venture out for a pilgrims dinner. We walk into the pretty small cafe and we saw the sign saying " live music". Hmmm I wondered, how is this going to be with a big walk ahead of us tomorrow! The musicians prooved to be just amazing and one in particular singing opera as a tenor. We had 2 hours of them singing ( videos uploaded) but they don't do justice to what a special night it was. Of course Brian tried to talk them into coming to sing at the Hatepe concert. As they spoke no english and B speaks no Spanish an arrangement was not made! We walked home all on a high with the full moon shining thinking this Camino adventure is quite special.
Today we made our own breakfast of poached eggs and delicious tomatoes and set off again to a beautiful morning.
We had 20 km today which is a good distance . It was a good constant climb up onto the Meseta plains with its expansive views of rolling hills , windmills and dusty tracks. I walked and talked for awhile with a beautiful black woman from Kenya who was using a beautiful ivory and wooden stick. She told me that her stick contained voodoo magic from her grandmother and that it would protect her!
After 11 km we found a cute wee village for our normal coffee and fresh squeezed orange juice. There was even fresh green grass at the cafe.
By then ( about 11am) the day was getting hot but on we walked until was came to an amazing old ruin where we dined on dates and almonds and a banana but so nice to sit in the shade. The ruins were the monastery of San Anton where back in the day they treated people with ergotism A disease from a fungi in rye bread. The treatment often was amputation of extremities! Not sure what the survival rate was!
Finally another 3 km on we plodded into Castrojeriz (population of 500) feeling very hot and it wasn't long before we were settled at the bar with a cold beer that made the day all worthwhile. We are now having siesta time and staying in a quaint hotel with a bath! Sheer bliss.
The big thing now on the boys minds is where can we see the AB game and I fear we may have no luck but no doubt they will have fun trying to explain what they want!
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