Walk to San Juan de Ortega

Here we are at San Juan de Ortega, and there IS wifi!! In the years since 2013 the guy must have been hounded so much that he finally moved into the 21st century. Don’t know if it will cope with photos, but will try and see. Well, our day....we left Belorado at 8.30 and walked 25.3kms to this tiny place. It says in the book, population 20! There is just a church, beautiful and massive, an albergue, a bar and a hotel....all run by the guy in the bar (not the church)...so a bit chaotic, but the rooms are good, water hot and this area very peaceful. We will have dinner over in the bar with the crowd from the albergue as well, and breakfast is a plastic bag of food given to us tonight!! (Probably a box of OJ, a roll and croissant in cellophane wrapping!)...so we will leave whenever we like in the morning, and stop at the first available bar along the way for coffee and proper sustenance.

It was a very different walk today, leaving Belorado we continued for a while with the fields and sunflowers, but after reaching a town - Villafranca Montes de Oca - it all changed. We climbed steeply out of the town and up the “mountain” - really big hills here. But it was a magic change - amazing panoramas on all sides, and we found ourselves walking through oak and pine forests, with purple heather, and shade!! So lovely. There was some more gradual ascent, and some level parts. The sun emerged from the morning clouds at 10am so we were very glad of the shade. Stopped for lunch on a shaded seat looking over the valley - had bought some yum local cheese (not unlike Manchego) and had crackers, dates and dried chorizo that we had bought at the supermercado in Belorado for today and tomorrow.

It was a long walk to finally arrive here, but we do well...we walk at a consistent fairly slow pace - not power walking, and slower than when we do our walks in Manly...but we find it works...we have plenty of reserve and can go up the hills, still slowly, but without getting puffed, and can continue for a long time. Still it was good to arrive this afternoon, as it did get really hot in any unshaded parts.

We have a nice room, on the ground floor (a huge plus as no bad lugging up stairs) and with the usual two beds put together. This has the advantage that we do each get our own pillow! A few nights ago we actually had a double bed, but the problem was that we had just the one long pillow, and neither of us could do our individual pillow thing!!

Tomorrow we walk into Burgos, another fairly long walk but not hilly. But there is the boring long entry into the city. We are going to try to do this by an alternate route by the river which will be good if we find it!

Now will post this and see if it works. Hallelujah!Read more