Hornillos del Camino

The Meseta is a plateau, which means it's wide and flat. There's no shade, towns are more spaced out, and if one isn't close you know that for a fact, because you can see for miles. I can imagine in summer, that's all a bit hard. Today, it was clear, still and cool. Sun warming my hair but puffer on. Perfect walking weather, if less than optimal covert pee terrain.

After stopping for a coffee in Tajardos, a coke in Hornillos (the traditional end point of today's stage) and Oreos on the side of the trail twice, I had four kilometres to go and was starting to count down. I was also really hungry and hoping to catch lunch before this 2-5pm shut down everywhere has. So I put my foot down and turned in 11-minute kilometres but still rolled in after two.

I was resigned to eating something at the bar when I saw Rusty, both buckled and buckling up, outside a restaurant. He asked if I'd eaten, and told me he'd just had the best meal of his whole Camino including quite a lot of wine, and what's more they were serving for another hour! See separate post about that but spoiler alert, I agree.

I got to check in to my albergue all in Italian, again, I wonder if it's common or I'm just finding every Italian hospitalero there is. My Spanish really stands no chance when I'm speaking its sister tongue so much but I am improving slowly.

Today was one of my favourites of the whole trip and the idea that it nearly didn't happen almost stops my heart. Of course every day, every moment of our lives is a miracle of coincidence, but it's too much to imagine so I, like you probably, tend to think of a plan and unplan binary. Today was unplanned. It could have gone in so many directions, ended in so many towns. But it's wound up here. And how lucky I am for it.Read more