Belorado to Espinosa

Another short one today. A conservative 8km to continue the shin test, it held up! Tomorrow is an unavoidable big jump, 22km, so we'll see 🤞

For some reason I thought the albergue I stayed last night had a 10am check-out (albergues generally kick you out by 8am), so I had a late start planned. I knew the 8km would only take me around 90 minutes, and it wasn't due to get warm until around 2pm. Get up around 9am, walking by 10am, perfect. The main advantage of this is that everyone else in the dorm has pissed off by about 7.30am, so you have the place (and bathroom) to yourself. Around 7.30, however, my spider senses tingled and I thought I might just double check the check-out times. Good thing I did chaps. Up I hopped, out by 8.

I grabbed my stuff from the fridge, only to find someone had nabbed my salami 🔪So, I did the only suitable thing, and took someone's chorizo (don't worry, they LEFT IT). There was also a mini maxibon left in the freezer; breakfast.

I ate it in the sleepy square as the sky slowly lightened. Chased it down with my juicy mandarin. Plaited my hair, popped on my hat, and got my ass outta town.

About halfway through the leg, I treated myself to a REST BREAK (Lexie did you read that) in Tosantos, where they had a truly lovely little food truck garden setup. Here I sat for half an hour with a cafe con leche, listening to some soul bangers and revelling in the slight chill in the air.

I arrived in Espinosa at 10am, which I found an extremely boring time to arrive at your destination, when that destination consists of literally one business (my accommodation) and a single street. I considered pushing on another 16km but, after a check, I discovered there were no beds available for about 40km. No, shan't be going that far. Espinosa it is.

This ended up being quite a fortuitous outcome because I achieved something my spirit has been gagging to do for the last ~14 days: pat a dog.

There's no exciting news from this point on. I sat, I snacked, I had a second coffee, I increased my vitamin D levels, I befriended Leo and Antonio - the wonderfully charming albergue hosts, had a shower, and pretended not to speak English to avoid interacting with an annoying British girl. Don't judge me.

I had my third meat + cheese baguette in 24hrs, sank a beer, and wondered why the older Chinese lady in my room was wearing thermals.Read more