Camino Day 18: Fromista to Carrion

Total Distance: 20.8km
Step Count: 31.5k
Blisters to date: 2
Tortillas to date: 17
Injuries: shin splints

The walk today wasn’t the nicest until the very end but the place where we were going was. I was in a bit of pain from shin splints and the scenery was very uninspiring until the last couple of kms where there were sunflowers as far as the eye could see! 🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻

Overall, it was an easy and peaceful walk to Carrion de Los Condes where most of the albergues are under the care of one religious order or another.

We were going to stay at the Albergue de Santa María where the nuns are known to sing to pilgrims. To our surprise, the nuns were away but luckily that didn’t stop the singing. The volunteer in charge was a very charismatic man who could entertain us all for days! 🎸

The afternoon had a jam packed agenda with singing at 5pm, a pilgrims’ mass at 7 and then a communal dinner at 8. For the communal dinner, we were asked to bring something to share as they would provide the main meal. For €10 which was the cost of the bed, this was a pretty generous offer 🤍

We spent the afternoon at a bar with a funny American couple, who we’d seen over the days and we left them at 5 to attend the singing hour.

The singing was very interesting as everyone took part (which was unexpected) and the volunteers had every single person introduce themselves and share why they were on the Camino. There were laughs and tears and so many different and inspiring stories. This was the day I found out why my (soon to become) little brother on the camino was walking. Gave him the biggest hug ever!

After the singing had finished and all the stories had been shared, the volunteer in charge came up to me and told me a beautiful story that resonated with my journey. He also asked me to meet them at 7am the next day as they wanted to give me a surprise before I left. Why me out of everyone? Who knows… but the Camino works in mysterious ways like that 🤷🏻‍♀️

Over dinner we also celebrated Veronica, a gal who started walking from Italy and would be walking her 100th day the next day! Simply amazing!Read more