A slightly weird day - at Belorado

We started out from Santo Domingo quite leisurely, admiring the bridge, and looking at the many storks’ nests up high on poles, and passing a water hole where frogs were loudly croaking (I at first thought it was sheep!), and listening to the loud cry of a peacock somewhere…so it was a nature time…we had over the last few days heard cuckoos too, very recognisable. We got to Grañon where we stopped for a coffee/ColaCao, and realised we hadn’t come far really, and were to be taken by taxi to tonight’s hotel, out of Belorado (Belorado is very small and presumably was booked out)…the voucher for this taxi said 4 o’clock and we assumed we would call and find out the meeting point, but if we would be arriving much after 4 we’d call etc….anyway, we chugged along, the same open countryside covered with the dazzling green of the wheat and barley…not a sign of vineyards any more! And we passed into Castilla y León, out of La Rioja…no more red soil, back to the grey earth. We could see the camino stretching way out into the distance, and within 15 minutes we were there…so we powered on, not much else but the beautiful open spaces, and for a lot of the time we were near the N-120 highway which has lots of traffic between Logroño and Burgos…there was quite a strong breeze and we were walking directly into it, which added to the work, but had an upside for me as I could wear my new Logroño sunnies…they had been a problem as they fitted so comfortably and snugly that they fogged up very soon after starting walking and even putting them up my nose and tilting them didn’t work, but with the head wind they worked perfectly, protected my eyes from the wind and kept an airflow that stopped the fogging up!

We didn’t stop much, sat on the ground in the shade of a tree to eat …Rach and I shared a jamon and cheese bocadillo (so much ham and cheese consumed, often the only choice) and a mandarin, and to our surprise we actually did walk into Belorado just before 4. We were making our way to the plaza mayor, where we knew there were bars to have a drink 🥃 which we needed and had popped into the beautiful huge church, when a woman approached me and said “Rosemarie?” And it was our taxi lady, all ready and with our bags!!!

So we hopped in and were driven about 18 kms, into a different world along the winding roads in the craggy hills above to get to our 4 star hotel at Briviesca…our taxi driver had as little English as we had Spanish but we found that the white on top of one of the mountains was not snow but a sodium sulphate mine…and we also confirmed that the crops were all wheat and barley, and that soon would be sunflowers…I have photos of coming through the camino in this stage with huge fields of sunflowers. Anyway, we arrived at the hotel and checked in and found our very nice rooms, and when we met later after showering etc to go down to the bar to have a drink we found not a soul anywhere!! This is the rather weird part..here we are at this posh place, but no one around…so we found that the bar was a quiet space near reception, and the same one girl came and served us at the bar, but couldn’t understand tonica which Rachel wanted…so she ended up with a ColaCao…Rich and I had beers…so we wonder what dinner will be like…the restaurant opens at 8.30, and will others appear?? To be continued after dinner…

Just back from dinner…well this place is still a ghost place…we were the only people in the dining room soon after 8.30…and we had to explain that we were there on half board and couldn’t pick from the fancy à la carte menu…so we were a bit of a disappointment to them probably, but had good meals…I had a mixed salad to start, actually we all did, and I had a fish soup as my main, which was delicious, and R&R were happy too…eventually one man also came in, and then another…they both just had one course and left before us…we wonder why we were driven so far off the camino to this place…it must have been a special deal…we are on the edge of the town, so nowhere near to walk to…feels right out in the country…so we will spend the night in a comfortable room, have a good breakfast probably and be gone at 9, when we are picked up again in the taxi…weird…but ok…Final tally for the day - 23.88 kms and 34,830 stepsLeia mais