The towns and facilities are few and far apart on the Meseta, so we left the convent early, fueled with yogurt and melon we'd purchased the day before, to help us through the 30 km day that lay ahead. It was a fine walk and we saw very few people along the way. Spooky. There were two routes to choose from today, so that would have split the pilgrims, and also some were bussing or taxiing ahead, due to injuries or running out of time.
The route we took was on a senda (gravel path beside a road). The road was quiet and the senda lined almost the entire way with maple trees, providing nice shade:
These maple trees have an unusual bark, reminiscent of the arbutus or madrone trees of the Pacific coast:
Tremenous variety of yellow arrows showing the way:
Several pilgrims have passed away while on the Camino, and many memorials serve to mark the locations and provide a memory of the person:
We walked for a couple hours with Irene (left) from Ireland (and the previous day with her hiking partner Trisha) and Sheila from Victoria and her husband Phil (out of the picture). Phil grew up in Sterling Ontario and knew a former classmate of mine from Waterloo (Lloyd Dunham) and I knew a former classmate of his from RMC, Roger Westwood (Commodore (ret) Cdn Navy) from my days at Macdonald Dettwiler and the MCDV program:
Jan and Irene:
We'd seen many fields of this leafy vegetable and could not figure out what it was. Vegetables are so rarely served in the meals we had, it was a puzzle. Larry figured it had to be related to the bread industry, because bread is the main food group here. We asked some Spaniards and they are sugar beets, like the stuff used in making jam to put on your bread for breakfast to put in your coffee to drink with your bread. So, three degrees of separation from bread. By the way, Larry normally drinks his coffee black. However, in Spain, he started ordering it with milk (con leche) for a little extra protein and adding sugar for a little boost of energy:
Clouds looming. Forecast is for rain! Yikes! We haven't seen rain for about 3 weeks!
Just love the texture and look of the wild grasses:
Quite a few shady picnic spots today. Very much appreciated:
One last push and we'll be there:
Stayed in a 10 Euro a night bar/restaurant/albergue. It was fine. The local men all appeared for games of cards, disappeared just as rapidly a couple hours later. Local women no where to be seen:
Jan could not resist pulling the chains attached to the church bells. Not sure if they were locked or rusted shut, or just too heavy, but she couldnt't get a peep out of them. We never heard church bells in this town:
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