Camino Frances, Day 15, The Meseta

 Day 15, May 3rd, 6:13am out the door. It’s a brisk 47°. Looks to be partly cloudy, but it hard to tell due to the darkness still. Woke up around 5am due to people in my barracks starting to shuffle around getting ready to leave. Got my stuff all packed up w/ the use of my little flashlight. My headlamp, battery’s are dead. Yes, I now can confirm it is partly cloudy. I can see the moon peeking through the clouds. I have about a 16 mile walk to my next Albergue. I don’t actually have reservations but the message I got back from ‎WhatsApp said that they have lots and lots of beds and no reservations are needed. But they wanted me to be there before 2pm, which I don’t see any problem. This is definitely the earliest that I have got out on the trail. There are a couple of pilgrims right behind me. I can hear them talking, but I think they’re Italian. Before I left the albergue they had some muffins and a couple of bananas sitting on the counter, so I took one of each and left a two euro coin on the counter. They were from yesterday so I figured 2 euros was fair🤣. At least I have a little something to eat at the start of the day. The weather forecast currently doesn’t show rain, but we all know how that could change, but I have my rain jacket and pack cover right on the top of my backpack ready to go if I need them. Just open my Compass and it says I’m currently on the southwest trajectory. I don’t know if I’ll see a sunrise or not today. I could just barely see some pink in the distance. I’ll definitely keep an eye on that. It was an OK night of sleep last night. I was close to the bathroom so there was a lot of foot traffic going in and out of the bathroom during the night but overall it wasn’t too bad for having 20+ people in the room. This Albergue has definitely been the nicest since I been on trail. They run a tight ship, but everything seems to run in order. I believe Mark is the owner. He is seems very nice and even asked me a couple times if everything if I needed anything. I did not partake in the pilgrim dinner since I had the late lunch, and the dinner meal was the same menu as the lunchtime as the lunch menu. I just went down to the main lobby area to finish the blog and I was just people watching eavesdropping on people‘s conversations🤣. Of course they’re all about the Camino. I saw Lawrence and his donkey was in a pin with a couple of horses.

Currently walking next to Canal de Castella, on the map it shows that I walk next to for a bit this morning some of you may be wondering, hey Randy, do you ever get lost on the trail? My answer to that is no Camino Francis is very well marked especially out here in the countryside. They have big yellow blue signs, arrows pointing in the right direction and they have the old stone pillars with the Camino symbol on them, pointing you in the direction. Sidenote, in the big cities yes that’s a little different. You have to pay more attention because the signs are less oblivious. You look for signs like painted yellow arrows on the sides of buildings, or sidewalks etc…Sometimes they’ll  have Camino shell symbol embedded into the sidewalk and you just follow those. Yes it can be a little confusing in the big cities that’s for sure but out here in the countryside  there’s really no way to get lost.

Glancing over my shoulder and it doesn’t look like I’m gonna get a pretty sunrise. The clouds are still just too low. There is a little gap between the clouds that may be some light will shine through but as for a real pink sky, I don’t think that’s gonna happen today. I’ve gone back to wearing my shorts today. Hopefully later I’ll be able to try my new Teva sandals, weather permitting. I have 3 or 4 little villages that I’ll be popping through today so they will be plenty of opportunity to grab my morning coffee and whatever I decide to get. I forgot to mention that they Albergue I just stayed at since it was a Berwick style room. there was only one bathroom for error for all pilgrims in the room and it wasn’t amends or women’s. It was just a shared bathroom. We had three showers four stalls three sinks, and everybody just went in together doing whatever they had to do. Actually, yesterday was the first time that I did not take a shower. The first thing I did when I got to the Alberta cause there was a lot of people in there taking a shower and so I just waited till later that evening, and I wasn’t all that sweaty because it was raining yesterday and I didn’t sweat all that much so I just waited till things kind of cleared out before I took my shower 

7:00am, still 46°, but it doesn’t feel that cold at all 2.8 miles in so far still walking by the canal. 

Just passed over the canal of Castilla at a very awesome spillway. Now entering the outskirts of Fromista, which is another one of those very popular pilgrim stopping points, because it’s a bigger town and they have more services available.

Just stopped at this wonderful little café, and it just opened a couple minutes before I got there, and I was the only one there.The lady working behind the counter was so nice. She made me a ham and cheese toasted sandwich for later today I had my café con Leche, a wonderful tasting orange marmalade cake pastry. I also  bought an orange and another chocolate pastry for the day. I ran into three ladies that stayed in the barracks with me. They were all Americans, not quite sure from where, but they all had REI shirts, and backpacks. 

8:00am, 47°. I have just left the town of Formista and the Canal behind me. Currently crossing over what I would determine some type of interstate highway,  I look off to my left and the far distance and I can see just a little bit of a rainbow. I think today’s route is just gonna be flat walk with not much elevation change.

8:27am, entering Población de Campos. Got my first custom wax Camino stamp, it cost me one euro, but it’s really cool looking. Now passing over River Ucieza w/ old cool looking bridge. At River Ueieza into the Camino splits into two routes. The regular route follows the road. The alternate follows the river. 🤔 what route do you think I took? You’re right, I took the river route. The river route is about 3/4 miles longer, but Ill take scenery over road walking any day. So I’m on this alternate route and I come across this nice lady from Italy and she speaks decent English and she asked where I live, I said Southern California and then said San Bernardino? l looked at her, with I am sure a surprised face. I said to her, I grew up San Bernardino. She then proceeded to tell me that she met somebody on the trail from California and they are from San Bernardino, that’s crazy!!! 

 It’s 10:15am I’ve gone just about 11 miles in a little over three hours. Figure I’ve got another 6 miles or so to go before I reached my destination for the night. . It still remains mostly cloudy little bit of the sun poking through currently temperature is 53°. Still walking on the alternative route but have crossed a bridge, the river is now on my right side and beautiful green wheat fields on my left. I pass a man with three just filth dogs, they have been playing in the wet fields. I have a little bit more left on this alternative route before i merge back onto the original Camino route, but it’s been really nice walking along the river, I enjoy it very much. 

10:42am,  I’m now entering the city of Villalcazar de Sirga, just starting to feel a few light sprinkles. 

11:50am, just entering the outskirts of Carrion de Los Condes. The rain never materialized thank goodness. This is where I will staying the night. This village is another popular stopping point along the Camino. Has many different sleeping options, restaurants, bars, grocery stores etc….I’m almost at 16 miles for the day. It’s still 56° mostly cloudy. It’s been a nice walk today, mostly flat terrain and cool temperatures. It was a different walk today than the last couple days. I started by walking along a canal, then a stretch along a road. Then I took the alternate route, walking along a river, then it was back to walking along the road that lead into Carrion de Los Cardon.

12:10, Checked into my Albergue. This place used to be an old Catholic school, before it became an Albergue. It is still run by nuns😬 supposedly around 6pm they are going to sing for us. This place cost me a whole €10. I am in the room Europa with 10 beds, but no bunk beds. I took a bed by a window, opened my backpack and everything just spewed all over the bed!! First chore washed the cloths and got them hung to air dry, showered, and then ran to a local grocery store. Bought a Coke Zero, bag of chips, went back to my Albergue, ate my ham & cheese sandwich that I bought earlier this morning.

I talked to 3 young adults, early 20’s. This is their first Camino. They all started separately, but have since hooked up together and now are walking altogether.

I went to explore a little, got to the center of town and it started to rain, took cover under an entrance to a bar to wait out the rain. 10 min later the rain stopped and I found myself setting out another bar with a cold one people watching. Another brief rain shower hit but I was protected from a canopy. When I first sat down at this bar, there were people roaming up and down the streets in droves. By 3pm, the streets looked like a deserted ghost town, where did everybody go? Only people still out on the streets were some obvious Camino pilgrims. One min people are roaming around the next min, poof they are gone🤣🤣

Came back to my Albergue to work on my blog and made tomorrow’s reservation for my nights stay. Going to Moratinos, about 18.5 miles. I thought I might hit the 1/2 way point tomorrow, but actually it won’t be until the next day, Sahagun. I’ll be about 6 miles short of it tomorrow. 

We are supposed to have a singing performance by the Nuns here later this evening. I leave a review🤣

Stats!!!!!!!!!!- Bordilla del Camino to Carrion de Los Condes, Stage 15

Miles- 16.1

Duration- 5hrs 50 min

Elevation- 276ft

Temp- 46- 63 degrees, Cloudy w/ sun

Song- Keep on Chooglin.       CCR

Weather shows 55% rain yomorrow, yikes. 

Thanks for readying as always. Have a great Day🌞