Great night sleep, and I owe it to my new addition for this year – an eye mask. The street light shone through the window opposite me.
A quick breakfast at 7am and I hit the road, the last to leave the albergue. I soon caught up with Tania, who I walked with for the first couple of kilometres.
The moon was full and present as the sky slowly brightened. It was a little chilly with my hands feeling slightly sore, but I resisted my gloves.
It was glorious walking, out in the middle of the Castilian countryside. At one point I was on a small plain, with golden grasslands surrounding me and trees interspersed to the distant hills. It felt like another world.
I paused to take in the silence, the faint chirp from a bird somewhere was all I could hear. It was just beautiful. I stood for 5 minutes or so, appreciating the serenity.
I continued on. A group of cycling peregrinos doing the via de la plata whizzed by, shouting ¡Buen Camino!
Around the next bend I caught them up, a chain had fallen off one of the bikes. They really tested my Spanish, but I managed to have a simple conversation.
Pressing on, the grasslands gave way to shrubs and the charred remains of trees stretched out before me. There had been a wild fire here at some point, but not recent with all the greenery about.
I took an easy pace today, I felt no need to hurry or keep to my usual stride. The tranquility of my surroundings was inviting me to slow down.
Eventually I came to the fork in the road. Taking the advice of the hospitalero, I took the left path to Villanueva de las Peras – this had a bar for a rest stop.
I ordered my first tortilla y potata of this Camino – I was fantasising about a slice all morning. I was soon joined by Tania and Lisardo.
Fuelled up I continued on, leaving the small village and back into the countryside. I reached the only serious hill of the day, skirting around numerous bodegas, now converted into small holiday homes.
Before long I was on top of a mesa following another rich red-brown dirt path for several kilometres before descending into Santa Croya, where I stopped at a bar for a drink, joining Lisardo.
I called into a little convenience store to get something for dinner – Santa Marta doesn’t have a shop nor bar, and the albergue doesn’t offer a communal meal. There wasn’t a lot on offer and I settled for a microwaveable paella. Disappointingly, there wasn’t any fresh veg to cook up anything more substantial.
A short kilometre over the river I was at Santa Marta, settling in to the donativo albergue next to the monastery.
Stu's Camino 