16-07-2011 Grañon – Villafranca Montes de Oca

I walked almost 258 kilometers (approx 160 miles). I’m almost at 1/3rd of my camino de Santiago. Today I started walking at 5.15am. Funny to start walking so early but I was awake. I thought get up and start walking. It was dark and there were no street lights.. After a while I walked in the wrong direction. I didn’t saw any sign anymore of the Camino de Santiago. It was emotional to lose the way. You are walking and because of the dark and missing the signs you don’t see which direction to walk. You know that you have to walk 30 kilometers (approx 19 miles) today and if you take the wrong direction you add some kilometers extra. After I walked 45 minutes guided from my feeling of direction I found again the path of Camino de Santiago. Gave a nice feeling and emotion. I walked aside the N-120 direction Belorado. That was the good choice. I took the time so I could see how much time I had lost. I walked an average of 3.6 km/h. That’s not that fast. It was ofcourse caused due to searching the way and thinking. It’s not that important but still you feel a little bit sad in such moment. The good news was that it was a nice route. Because I walked wrong I also met again with Jantje. I recorded us for a little bit while walking. Was funny. She is spontaneous. Yesterday I enjoyed the dinner, felt like a little party. We ate with 50+ persons together. Really enjoyed the people. First plate was spaghetti. Delicious. Little cold but the tast was good. You are so hungry that you are happy to eat something. The taste was good. They also provided sangria. To my right sat Huib and next to him a german couple of 20’s from a place near Stuttgart. Left from me sat… you never guess it… The Korean girl which I met earlier. She told me that her name is Angela because her real name is too difficult to remember and pronounce. That’s true because I didn’t remember her Korean name anymore, that difficult to pronounce and remember. Next to her was Aiko Tadatsu, a Japanese student of 21 who studied in Morocco, African economics or something like that. She was really nice, happy and funny. She spoke English very well. Next to her was Hiroto Nakata, a Japanese student which studied Business English in Mannheim (Germany). I said studying Enlish in Germany? Even funnier was the fact he didn’t speak German at all. He told me he only spoke English and ofcourse Japanese. I recorded them both while explaining some Japanese words.

Suddenly Angela spoke to me in bad English :”I thought about you since I saw you in the TGV“. At the moment someone wanted to serve me sangria she took the control and insisted she served me, everytime she did this with a special smile. Huib made a joke about this. He told… she wants to marry you. Koreans are interested in men from the West. Ahhh.. I skip this one. Nice woman but not exactly the reason why I walk the camino de santiago. In such moment you miss the person you love. but back to walking….

Today it went well with walking except the pain I experience in my back. Bummer. Take a good rest. I hope to eat some nice food later on. There is a family here with 4 kids. They travel with 2 donkeys and a big tent. Special to see. The youngest, a girl of 3-4 years old, was walking towards the donkeys and was dangerously close. She was behind the donkeys. Her somewhat older sister pulled her away, just in time. Huib and me were holding our breath. We were too far away to say something but then you see that her sister watched her younger sister well. With those people (parents) who don’t worry about these things doesn’t happen a thing wrong. Gladly enough.

I did the laundry. I put the laundry on the line for drying and make a photo as proof for the people at home. My body has become more flexible. I can touch my feet when I bend over. That was a while ago I was able to do. Apparently you become more flexible because of that walking.

Dinner was 13 euros. I took spaghetti with tomato sauce with cheese as a starter. The main dish was Lomo Adobado. Really good. Huib had asparagus with hamburgers. He had 2 hamburgers and I had 3 pieces of lomo. We shared the meat so we had a mix of meat. Great combo. The food was delicious. The wine was good. You notice that the food had better taste and quality here. 13 euros is a high price for a pilgrimsmenu but it was obvious better quality. At the bar I took 3 beers and Huib took 2 beers and a gin tonic. The barman did a real ritual while making the gin tonic. We had to pay…..5 euros! Later in the evening we saw the barman had forgot 2 beers on the bill. Good news is that we have a little bit more budget for tomorrow. We are going to try to come as near as possible near Burgos. We want to skip Burgos because of the city being too busy and loud we both don’t want that stress at the moment.

Photo and video gallery:

05.30 started with walking

Found the path again!

Reunited with Jantje…

Some resting

Enjoying the view (you can also see the tent and donkey)

Wind playing with the fields…