Camino Frances, Day 16, The Meseta

 Day 16, May4th, it’s 6:20 out the door. Day starts off on a sour note. Got all packed, went to bin where all the hiking polls are kept, they  not allowed to be in the rooms. Somebody took my polls by mistake, I presume, because I found another pair just like them but they were not mine. These polls were as high as my arm pits. So who ever took them had to be very tall.😡😡. So I will on the lookout for a very tall pilgrim w/ polls.

Well, at least, I still have a pair of polls to use. It’s a cool 45° this morning and it did rain in the nighttime because everything is wet. I just bumped into Lawrence a.k.a. the donkey man and I got my picture with him. I’ve been trying to do that, but he’s always been so busy with people around him. I said, in yesterday’s blog I have a little over 18+ miles and from what I can tell not much change in elevation, so it should be pretty straight forward day.

Recap of last evening‘s events I had to wait around till 8 o’clock for any of the restaurants to open up. I found a nice burger joint that I went to. It was pretty good. Kind of a funny story here, my waiter was just a young kid and so I ordered my burger and then I pulled out my phone, and showed him a picture of a meal from In-N-Out, he looked at it and said Oh Wow!!that was so funny.

The albergue I stayed at advertise they had over 80 beds. By just looking at all the pairs of shoes and all the laundry that was hanging around. I would say that’s probably about right. I was in the main building up on the second floor and you can definitely tell this was an old school just by the way it looked. long hallways, wood flooring, doors that were off set from each other along the hallway. I was in the Europa room had eight beds. I think I said 10 beds yesterday’s blog. My room was full, mostly Europeans, but there was one guy, Jeff from South Florida. He was the first pilgrim I saw using a BiPAP, now that’s how you get rid of the snoring issue. Put them on BiPAP. I actually had a decent night sleep, maybe I am getting used to sharing a room w/ strangers. I was awake around five because people were already starting to stir about. So I laid there for 15-20 minutes and I just said that’s enough I’m getting up. I’m getting pretty good at packing my bag in the dark. I didn’t even use my little flashlight today, there was enough ambient light coming from the hallway through the door just give me an enough light to see what I was doing.

Some you might be asking Randy?  how do you pack your backpack for the day? Well that’s a good question. Let me tell you the first thing I start off with is my sleeping bag and it’s real small lightweight squeezes down to nothing. I put that on the bottom, next to that goes my little bag of socks and underwear. That’s the first level, next goes in my bag of shoes my Teva’s. I leave my flip-flops out of the bag so I can grab those easily when I get to my place of stay for the night. Next level is my bag of clothes. I leave that flat horizontally in the pack, that sits in the middle of my pack, and that makes a perfect shelf for the next layer, which would be my bag of toiletry stuff and that’s like the biggest bag in my pack. Then right next to that is my poncho because it’s easy to get access to. That puts us all the way up to the top layer now this layer is my rain jacket, if not wearing it, today it’s my fleece, since I am wearing my rain jacket today. I put my bag of electrical cords and my Camino guidebook on top of that. I also have a pocket inside where the water bladder normally goes which I’m not caring and in there goes my towel washcloth and I have another smaller bag that has some miscellaneous stuff in it. I have a spare shirt in there my zip off in my pant bottoms, my buff, sleeping night mask. I pull the drawstring cord, close it up and then I have two pockets on the very top. I have two zipper pockets on the top. One  pocket will have my headlamp my Advil and my Compeed, for any hotspots that may happen while I’m walking. In the zippered pouch is where I keep all my snacks. I close all that up and then I have on the very top. I have two straps that I can straps stuff to the very top of my pack, like if I take my rain jacket off, I can just strap to the top,  just dangle it over the top of my bag. So there you go, that’s how Randy packs is backpack for the day. Thank you for asking that question everybody. 😉

7:35am, it is still 49° and now it’s full clouds. I’m at the 4 mile. I’ve been actually walking on the asphalt road for a good 3 1/2 of those miles. The trails right next to the road, but I just decided to walk on the asphalt easier,  but I’m currently making a little jog off the road here and we’re going back on the dirt path. I see a long line of pilgrims in front of me walking in single file.  It’s kind of amazing to me how the miles seem to click off so fast. I don’t feel like I’m walking all that fast but when I look at my mileage counter, I’m surprised by how many miles I’ve gone. I probably average about 3 miles per every one hour give or take a little. Being out here in the meseta, being more flat, I probably average a little more miles. It makes it kinda easy to calculate your day, so I know I’m gonna walk 18 miles today. Divide that by three gives me about six hours of walking today, but that does not include stops.

8:00am, still 45°. Ever so often I felt a little raindrop hit me, so it was a perfect timing when a little trail magic, food truck, I happened upon. Stopped, got me a fresh squeezed OJ, ham and cheese sandwich, for later today,  a banana and a hard-boiled egg. I also put my rain pack on and I got out my poncho and had underneath the rain pack so if I need to get that out, I can grab that real quick but right now I’m just going with my rain jacket. Hopefully that’s all I need. I’m at the 4.5 mile mark as of right now. 

Sidenote Jeff, the guy from South Florida who I had mentioned was one of my roommates last night told me that we still have one good climb somewhere along this route and he said he’s renting a horse to get up that particular climb like I said before, everybody has their own way of doing the Camino.

9:15am it is now 46°. Still mostly cloudy not feeling any sprinkles or raindrops at this point in time. I am at 8.5 miles just around three hours still have just a bit to go before I enter my next village. I just been walking down this long street as an arrow road dirt road with wheatfields on both sides to me. I can hear the  the sound of the big trucks on the freeway in the distance. Seen quite a few familiar pilgrim faces that I’ve seen for the last couple of 2 to 3 but not really conversing w/ any of them. It’s more Buen Camino or just say good morning. 

9:56am, entering Calzadlilla de la Cueza. Stopped for a Cafe con Leche and Spanish Tortilla. Still no sign of my walking sticks, but I keep looking.

11:00am, now we’re up to whopping 50° not much too wind. The sun now has broken through the clouds and it is beautiful out here. Currently at 14.3 miles 4hrs 53 min. Not a whole lot report since the last little village stoppage. I have just been walking along the road for the better part of 3-4 miles now and it doesn’t look like it’s gonna end anytime soon. I am starting to get hot, it’s time to take off the jacket. Looking over the vast farmland, I can see a mountain range in the far distance. My earbuds are in, listing to 2112 by RUSH. That’s for my buddy Tom.

11:23am, entering the small village of Ledigos. They have a cafe, but I not going to stop.

11:55am, I have reached the village of Terradillos de Los Templario, I know a mouth full to say!! This is one of the more popular stops for pilgrims on this current section. Not stopping here either, so i’ll keep on pushing forward. Just passed a mileage marker to Santiago and it roughly tells me I have 249+ miles to go.

12:10pm, temperature is 52° slight wind not bad, perfect hiking weather. At 17.5 miles 5hrs 35min.  Leaving that last town, I am no longer just following the road but head back out to the farm lands, the Meseta. Walking on a white rock crushed path incased by green fields on both sides. I should be coming to my where I am staying the night shortly.

12:37pm, I have reached the village of Moratinos. I get checked into Albergue Hostel Moratinos, & signed up for the pilgrim dinner tonight for €15. I grab a beer to just a bit before I go my dorm room. I turn around and there is this man, a good 7ft tall,  now standing in front of me with my sticks in his hand. He is the man that took my sticks from the albergue I stayed at last night. So I say to him those are my sticks, I think he speaks German, but he just kinds of laugh, and then he tried to leave!!!. I went after him, I grabbed my sticks out of his hand, and I shoved his sticks into his hand and I repeated, these are my polls. I pointed at the boot tips and my gorilla tape I have wrapped around my polls and then he says OK OK OK. That dude was trying to steal my polls. I was so mad😡😡.

I returned to the Albergue, to finish my beer and eat my lunch I brought with me. I updated my all my dates on my stamps in my booklet. Underneath each stamp I write the date of when I got the stamp. That just shows proof that I was there. They write there dates here different, we write, using today’s date, 05/04/26, well they write it 04/05/26. 

I got to my dorm room, 15 beds, but in 3 separate rooms. I got the bunk bed in the single room. I was the first to arrive so I got to pick the best bed. Only 7 pilgrims here so far, so I am thinking that should be about all that are showing up because it is getting late. 

Showered, washed a couple pieces of laundry, and looking at where I will be staying tomorrow. It’s a never ending process. Find a place to stay, walk, then do it all over again. Tomorrow I don’t have a lot of options as to where I will be staying the night, slim pickins for sure.

Pilgrim dinner update in tomorrow’s blog.

Overall it was a very nice walk, weather was perfect for walking. Tomorrow I hit the 1/2 way point on my Camino. Lawerence, aka donkey man is also here, this dude is stalking me🤣🤣🤣🤣. He is actually a very interesting person.

 🎤🎶🎶🎶🎶 Stats Time- Carrión de Los Condes to Moratinos, Stage 16

 Miles- 19.1

Duration- 6hrs28min

Elevation- 469ft

Weather- 45-61 degrees

Song- 2112, Side On, RUSH 

Tomorrow is a twenty miler, heading to Calzadilla de Los Hermanillos, say that 4 times fast. Weather outlook looks positive, no rain. 1/2 point tomorrow whoohoo. In Sahagun I can pick-up my 1/2 way certificate 

Thanks for Readying, and as always Fight On✌🏻✌🏻