Villar de Domingo Garcia to Villaconejos

It was raining when we got up. Since weather.com said it would stop by 8, and since Clare wanted a real coffee in the bar, we set out at a leisurely 8 am. That may be my latest Camino departure ever! But we did have a short day, 24km, with virtually no elevation.

Right after leaving town, the camino goes off onto a dirt track. It soon became clear that the 10 or so hours of rain the day before had turned the surface into thick red mud that grabbed onto your shoes. After about 2 kms of heavy mud, we decided to hop over to the highway for about 6 Km. There was a decent shoulder, but even so it was not fun walking. Trucks were relatively frequent.

In the first town of Torralba, I had a Fanta de Limón. At that point, we decided to switch back to the Camino, and it was an excellent decision. A very nice, not muddy, off-road walk. From here all the way into our destinations, it was a dirt trail, sometimes along the river, sometimes beneath caves, and sometimes just through small agricultural plots. All in all, it was a really nice walk.

We were checking into the Albergue before two, and the very gregarious and convivial hospitalero insisted that he would be back to take us out for a vino at 9 pm when he finished work. 9 pm? That’s our bedtime!

We got a sandwich in town at the local bar, and we have showered. No way our clothes will dry, so I have washed socks and underwear and we’ll just hope for warmer weather tomorrow.

It turns out that the nuclear power plant in the region is in need of some major work. Every small Pension and Casa Rural within 100 kilometers are booked out for the entire week and beyond. Though I had hoped to stay in a few of these places, we are lucky that there are Albergues. Today’s albergue has real beds and hot showers, but I think that some of the ones in our future will not be so luxurious. It’s just all part of the adventure!Read more