Day 11, the endless expanse

The Meseta is the great divider of the Camino. Not just in terms of it being its midpoint, but also as the thing dividing emotions: some hate it for its wide fields of nothingness, others (like me) love it for the calm of mind and almost total lack of stimuli it brings.

Today was my second day in the Spanish high desert, taking me no further than to Castrojeriz, a town with a storied past and little else. But it is, as they all are, a camp along the dusty highways of the Meseta, a place to rest, drink, and reconnect with other pilgrims.

I admit, I have not found my „crowd“ yet, and maybe won’t at all, this time. This is the loneliest Meseta I have had so far, no evening guitars around a campfire, no laughter in six languages, no anecdotes from the road. Just the calm desert wind carrying the smells of the Meseta, the sound of birds going on one last sunset hunt, and the red light of a sinking sun turning everything into glowing desert ember.

Tomorrow I’ll walk to Boadilla de Camino, but for tonight I am going to enjoy the silence, hug my fleece tighter as the night brings the desert cold, and sit until the stars above me show me, as they do every night, the way to Santiago de Compostella.Read more