Alesanco to Grañón

After a very good night’s sleep at the Pensión Jauja and self served breakfast of coffee, toast and home-made cake we left as soon as there was enough light to see our way, i.e. about dawn at 7:45am.

Gerard Mc. tried to phone so we returned his call from Jindera where he was watching the AFL Grand Final. Geelong well ahead at half time.

Today’s 23km walk was in 3 equal sized segments. First part was a walk down the road to rejoin the Camino path, followed by a good path up to Cirueña, rising about 200m in altitude.

About an hour in it started to rain so we deployed hitherto unused matching mustard coloured ponchos which kept us dry in the very light rain. Coffee and tortillas at the Bar Jacobeo in Cirueña were well worth the 300m detour off-Camino. When we finished there the rain had stopped.

From there it was a gentle mostly downhill run on a wide path to Santo Domingo de la Calzada (“Saint Dominic of the paved path”). It’s an ancient town that grew up around the hermitage of Dominic Garcia (not Guzman who founded the Dominican order). Back around 1000 he apparently built bridges and paths to facilitate travel to Santiago and is the patron saint of Spanish civil engineers.

Yesterday was mostly through wine country but today was mostly through wheat country: huge already harvested fields of brown or yellow depending on whether the stubble had been ploughed in or not. It was a very wide and beautiful landscape, with occasional enormous stacks of hay bales.

In the center of Santo Domingo we stopped for a sandwich and a drink and aired our feet for about an hour.

Our third segment took us up slightly in altitude to Grañón. Rain set in and got quite heavy for the last 3km as we reached Grañón; the ponchos were deployed again.

There was some confusion about how to get the key to the apartment we had booked. I (K) had failed to notice an email with very brief instructions in Spanish. I phoned the owner and asked him to resend the email. He did so and all was fine. Just had to collect the key a block away.

We’re living it up in a 2-bedroom 2-bathroom modern apartment with a washing machine. We will step out later for a proper feed after last night’s meagre rations. The rain has stopped.Read more