Carcaboso to Baños de Montemayor

I had a really good night's sleep, and my foot that had the infected blister was feeling a lot better, it seems to have sealed over. So, hopefully this will be my last bus journey on the camino, I am so ready for getting back on the path.

The hospitalero arrived to make sure I got on the right bus (there were a lot of buses that morning, mostly taking kids to school), which I thought was really nice of him. I got to the bus hub in Plascencia within 15 minutes and was dismayed to find the same surly and very unfriendly person behind the counter, he had, I think deliberately, given me wrong information about the bus to Carcaboso yesterday, he did the same today. He had told me a time and platform, but when I checked the actual ticket, it gave a different time and platform. The ticket information was correct and the driver had a list of the valid tickets, Maybe the guy was just offended that I didn't speak fluent Spanish, or maybe he just wasn't a nice person, who knows.

Having got the bus part of the way I didn't have too far to walk, and when I got to Baños I went looking for a private albergue that was listed in the guide book, but I couldn't find it. So, I went back to the turistico albergue I had stayed in before. It is fine, it is very clean and roomy, with proper beds and sheets, so I didn't need my sleeping bag. The toilets and showers are quite good, but there's no washing machine so you have to wash your gear by hand in a sink in the garden, but they have a drying line.

Baños is a very pretty town, with Roman baths and a spa - not within my camino budget - and plenty of cafe bars and restaurants where you can get a decent meal. However, there are almost no shops, just a garage shop and a couple of very, very small shops selling the basics, it is quite difficult to get supplies.

I managed to get some water, a bar of chocolate and a couple of magdalena cakes for tomorrow, and then went out for dinner, which was very good. I had been to Baños before, and pretty as it is I didn't really want to wander around so I headed back to the albergue and discovered that there was another customer in the same room as me, definitely not a camino pilgrim. his suitcase had been delivered earlier by one of those bag transport companies, he looked more like a businessman on a work trip. He was Spanish, and didn't engage in conversation. I went to bed and read for a while.

Not for the first time I reflected on the difference between walking the camino on your own and walking with friends, I missed Ken's company, even his terrible jokes. I missed Meg and the other camino ladies, I wondered where they all were and what they were doing. I think for the first time on the camino, I felt very alone.Lue lisää