We anticipated today to be extremely hot so we decided we would leave early. We we’re out the door by 5:45 with a bit of rain and warm air. There was a sun roof above my bed in Carrión so when it began to rain in the middle of the night, it actually woke me up. We were out in time to see a beautiful sunrise!

But also, mosquitoes. I had my jackets on for the rain and had to stop to take them off because it was too hot. BIG mistake. These freaking mosquitoes were unbelievable! There were SO MANY. I felt personally attacked. They were just non stop. So I put my jackets back on, this time with the hood up and marched unhappily along the trail, cursing every mosquito.

As we walked, we saw another one of these signs that we have begun seeing that someone hand painted. I think I posted a photo of one yesterday, alas, today is another one. They often have inspirational quotes on them. Eventually the sun rose and we were on our path, away from the devilish blood suckers who invaded my skin. I have 16 bug bites now! SIXTEEN! Including one on my chin (???????) And they itch. And if you know me or have ever followed my blog before you know how well my skin reacts to them. So that’s AWESOME. Four of them are in a row, in a straight line, just on my side/back all not even a centimeter apart.

Today had a lot of long stretches with not many places to stop and rest or eat. We got to the first little Oasis of a cafe and sat down. We bought seriously overpriced coffee (hey-good economics though) and sat down. In eventually walked Maggie and Cyrille, eventually Silvano and Rachel, eventually Nicholas and Daniel, and lastly, Jens! Jens had caught up to us the day before and stayed in a different albergue. It was great to see him again.

We walked the rest of the day together which was quite enjoyable. By the end I was ready to be alone, but it was okay because Jens has such a cheery disposition. Seriously, I don’t know anyone who just so genuinely happy about where they’re at in life. Jens always says in his German accent “This is great! So great. I love it!” And it just is so heartfelt, every time. He’s great energy to be around. We talked about TV shows, he shared about his recent heartache and how it was the best thing to ever happen to him, sports, and I was learning some phrases in German. Which is hard.

We got to the albergue, got a room and laid down. We laid down early to avoid the heat but dang- it was still so hot. But! We officially passed the halfway mark today!!!! Yahoo! Except, I (and I think Debbie too) was under the impression that there would be a sign or a big…something? Anything? To indicate it was halfway. We saw tons of rocks on the ground saying it was halfway, but I still thought there would be an official one. Happy I took a photo of a stone.

We got to our place, laid down and tried to cool off and relax. The room was warm though, but overall a nice place. We didn’t stray terribly far after that. We had our clothes laundered and ended up having dinner with Peter, Aaron (a different one), and Jens. Peter is an older gentleman who started the Camino in March. Yep. March. He walked out of his front door in Germany and has been walking since. He shared some incredible stories about what has happened to him along the way. We looked at all of his credentials and stamps, it was impressive. Aaron is from England and has had a rough time recently with life, which was sad. Things resulting in him no longer being with his wife after 9 years and the Camino was what he felt he had to do. Very spiritual guy. After dinner, we grabbed some snacks from the shop on site and climbed in for the evening.

Day mileage: 17
Total mileage: 243.7
Personal mileage: 17.58

We left Fórmista and headed out, it was cooler a bit yesterday walking to Fórmista. There was a lot of wind which added a chill that I didn’t appreciate as much.

But we walked about 10 kilometers and stopped at the first albergue for some breakfast. WELL. This albergue has to be the best one we have seen on the Camino so far. It was so cool! I wish 1) I had taken more photos 2) We had stayed there the night before. Everyone could see it for miles because it has a giant teepee you can sleep in. Today’s walk was boring- it was a straight shot for 12 miles only 10 feet from the road. So, the giant teepee wasn’t hard to miss. But they had little huts you could sleep in, heaps of grass, geese roaming, donkeys roaming, hammocks, slackline(!!!), Juggling balls, hula hoops- literally anything fun you can think of, it was there. It was SO cool. We ate here with Marguerite and Cyrille, eventually Silvano found us as well. We spent some time here, eating, fixing feet, and I played on the slackline.

After that, we just kept walking straight. I didn’t really take that many pictures because 1) it was boring looking 2) I didn’t charge my phone the night before and it was sitting with my portable charger in my pack, rather than my pocket.

It was SO FREAKING HOT. So for that, today was rough. We took breaks as we could in the shade, fixing feet some more and just cooling off.

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There was quite a big chunk of the walk where lots of people including Silvano, Debbie, and Cyrille, ran out of water. It was boiling. But we made it! We walked by a beautiful church on our way in. Doors were opened as cold air poured out. It was a welcomed relief.

We got to the albergue and got our bunk beds. They were filling up fast. We were in a place run by nuns. While sitting there, relaxing, I got a message from Jens telling me he was pushing ahead to Carrión and to ask if we could get him a bed. I tried, but they wouldn’t let me. I’ll give you one guess as to who walked in and got the last bed. THE FRIAR. Alberto. And where was he tonight? The top bunk next to mine. Three nights in a row we have Alberto the Friar and his Mary statue next to us. Debbie could have died! She was napping and opened her eyes only to see him RIGHT next to her and the he asked if he could put Mary on the table between the two beds. I also saw him when he walked in and asked if I could take a photo of him, he happily obliged.

Also, Rachel is here! It was great! Loads of our people were all in the same space. Debbie and I walked the town to get food (paella) and go to the supermarket and pharmacy.

OH! SIDENOTE** It was brought to my attention yesterday by my mother that this entire time I’ve been spelling pharmacy farmacy, without realizing it. When I type these blogs and picture the day over again, I walk through what we did, when we went and what it looks like. Well here, a pharmacy spelled farmacia. So I just accidentally have been combining the two languages for the last pffft…18 DAYS!? COME ON PEOPLE! One time (maybe even two) is a typo. SEVERAL is just plain error! But, whoops. My bad.

Back to the pharmacy- I’ve been on the hunt for tiger balm for my shins and I FINALLY found some here! I am so excited. I also got my first two baby blisters because of my sandals. I’ve been wearing them the last couple of days because the heat. I popped them, drained them, and cleaned them with something Debbie got at the pharmacy. We grabbed some ice cream and headed back. I went out and watched Silvano and Marco play chess on their makeshift chess board. I sort of got trapped outside because in the main walk way there’s a foyer space where there was a group choir/sing along. Which sounded beautiful but I did not want to walk through to go back upstairs. So outside I sat. Eventually it ended and everyone joined us. Marguerite, Cyrille, Rachel, Debbie- Daniel and Nicholas two guys we have been seeing but haven’t talked to all sat around the table in groups chit chatting. It was quite nice. We were all out there pretty much until we went to bed!

Day mileage: 12
Total mileage: 226.7
Personal mileage: 13.51

Today was not my day. I woke up and was fine for about 10 minutes when I got an email on my phone saying my credit card statement was ready. I knew it was going to be popping up soon, so being a responsible adult I decided to log in real quick and pay before we headed out. Well, in doing that I realized that there had been charges on my account that I did not make while I’ve been gone. I immediately start getting worked up because I don’t understand how the bank did not catch it. I submitted travel dates. I feel like they should have caught the charges happening online all over the United States. $1,500. Somebody started two days after we began the Camino using my card to buy $1,500 worth of food and clothing. I was so mad! I had to call the bank and it caused us to leave late, which I felt bad about. Also insanely frustrated because I had to cancel my card (which is in my possession) and get a new one shipped to me. At home. In the United States. Where I’m not for another 20 some odd days. So that was really cool. Great start to my day. I did not like people today.

BUT! It turns out I was right and the path I took a photo of yesterday from the castle WAS the path we took this morning! So I took a photo the opposite direction back towards the castle. Look and see the teeny castle at the top!

I pretty much just listened to my audiobook the entire day, which helped. We ran into Silvano, Marguerite and Cyrille between breaks. The views were still beautiful. Saw a crazy stork nest on top of the church too.

t was hot again today. Really hot. There were a lot of gaps with not a lot of places to stop which is always hard when you have to pee. We got just outside of Frómista which had this awesome sign telling us only 424 kilometers more to Santiago! Only, ha!

After that, we checked into our albergue. Marguerite and Cyrille were in our room! And guess who is in the bed next to us again? Well, literally next to Debbie? The preist! He’s back. Debbie wanted to find out if he was an actual preist or just a brother and began to ask him. We knew he was from Brazil and spoke Portuguese but could get by with Spanish. And once again because technology can be totally awesome we used the voice version of Google translate which was just awesome. Debbie (mostly) or I would speak into the phone in English and it would read it aloud in Spanish. We would hand him the phone and he would speak in Spanish and it would speak in English. It was pretty awesome. Glitchy at times, but awesome.

Turns out he’s a Franciscan Friar! Which is essentially a preist. He can give mass. Debbie asked all sorts of questions, starting with “can I hold the statue?” 😂 And he said yes. And I held it too. It was SO heavy. His entire pack and the statue together weigh about 37 pounds! He told us how he has been a friar for eight years. Debbie asked about the chains. He wears chains with a lock like a bracelet on each wrist. Google translate came back with “I am a slave to the Virgin Mary.” Which sounded really intense. They will be on his wrists forever, even in death. It was intense. He works with young children in Brazil and was fabulous when it came to communicating with us. He was really open and the best part was that any time he responded to us he would speak into the phone, but look directly act whoever he was answering. It was cool. He handed us a prayer, in Italian, and then got out some oil and I guess blessed us. Said words in Portuguese and made the sign of the cross on our heads. No idea what he said, but hey, couldn’t have been too bad. I did double check with the internet that he didn’t think I was going to die. Talking to my Mom, oil is often used in the Catholic faith rarley. Rarely in that you get it when you get anointed at confirmation and then… Anointing of the sick? Like, you’re about to die type deal. Turns out Google says Franciscan Friars also use oil in honor of Saint Anthony which wards off attacks of evil spirits, gives strength to withstand temptations against purity, heals the body and brings peace. Sooo… that happened.

After that, I went downstairs to find Marguerite, Cyrille, Marco, and Seng-jun (from Korea!) Sitting outside drinking. I joined them and later we we’re joined by Silvano and a new person, Emmett, and two other girls Yula and Yula (who are best friends at home, two weeks apart in birth, and not related at all). We sat around having wine, talking, and playing games, learning phrases or words in other languages. It was quite beautiful to see. You had a lot of languages flying around at once with all of the mini conversations happening. It was a mix of Italian, French, Korean, Spanish, English, and German. This entirely helped turn my not so good day around. We eventually cleaned up and headed to bed.

Day mileage: 11.9
Total mileage: 214.7
Personal mileage: 15.93

We got up, left our adorable albergue and headed out! It was back to lots of green today which was nice. It was overall, just another day of walking. We had to walk pretty far to get to the first town to be able to stop for breakfast. It was a cute cafe and low and behold, who catches up to us? Silvano. He passed us at breakfast with two friends and we passed them when they stopped. Debbie was laughing at our breakfast choices this morning because I got a banana and coffee and she got yummier treats!

The walk was mostly flat and went directly through these cool ruins. Before the ruins, I was COMPLETELY anxious because the path was narrow through a beautiful countryside and all I could hear were all the BEES. It was stressing me out, being able to hear all of them buzz, that I had to put my headphones in and listen to my audiobook to drown it out! Eventually Silvano’s group caught up to me (Debbie said to head on) and Silvano walked the last couple of kilometers with me coming chatting which was nice. Once we got to the outskirts of Castrojeriz, I found a bench to wait for Debbie.

We decided to go to the municipal albergue at the end of town for a shorter walk the next day. In doing that, we has to walk around a giant castle on a hill. I saw the road to the Castillo and decided I was going to do it later! We made it to the albergue, got settled, rested. My shin or shins (depending on the moment) were still on fire. I put some oil I bought at the farmacia in Burgos, filled up my water from a fountain in the square and headed out to the road I saw led to the castle.

Honestly, it took me about 3/4 of the walk up to finally calm down and stop panicking. I was walking up a hillside trail, alone, past abandoned houses and buildings, in a tiny town, in a foreign country, where I don’t really speak the language. That’s like the beginning of every news headline of women who end up dead abroad. Doing something alone in a foreign place. I’ve also seen that horror movie! I know how it ends. So, that was fun. I worked really hard to not let my own external fears get in the way of me being able to do what I want and be able to enjoy it, by myself. After 3/4 of the way, almost turning back, steering clear of a person walking down, and a group of nice cycalists passing me, I was sure I wasn’t going to die. At least, not be murdered. The heat and incline up to the castle might kill me, but not people!

I made it to the top and what a sight to see! It was absolutely GORGEOUS. I went all the way to the castle, where the bikers were exploring and took tons of photos.

AND! Because technology is sometimes freaking AWESOME I was able to use the camera feature of Google translate (even offline cause I had Spanish downloaded) to hover over and READ all of the signs explaining the history of the castle! It wasnt flawless, but absolutely well enough that I could understand what I was looking at, where I was standing, and what happened. So that was rad! So for example here is the same paragraph in both Spanish and the Google translate.

Castle was mostly empty, except for the bikers who ultimately left. So I had the place to myself! Full of steep narrow staircases and beautiful views of the whole valley. I took a photo of what I think our path for tomorrow is, from the top of the castle, but I’m not sure if it’s right.

When I got back, Debbie said to me that I would never guess who was sleeping next to us and I didn’t know who. IT’S THE PRIEST! Everyone has been talking about the priest on this journey and I have been wanting to see him! He’s in the bed next to us and has this giant statue of Mary he is carrying around. Intense!

We went out to eat, had some paella and sat in the sun. My shins have been terrible lately. Just shooting pain up the front of them, but on the outside muscle. No good. And after the walk to the castle today, I was done. They hurt so bad. Debbie was going to look for the pharmacy, but Silvano’s instructions were vague and her feet hurt too much to wander around. However, two lovely ladies from Quebec offered to go for her and alas, we have made two new friends. Cousins, Marguerite and Cyrille. They were the two young ladies walking with Silvano into town. We talked to them for a while and they are just wonderful!

Day mileage: 11.9
Total mileage: 214.7
Personal mileage: 15.93

The lights turned on in the entire albergue soooo early. I wasn’t ready. But we got up, got ready and as we were leaving, so was Aaron. We had him take a nice photo of us in place of our standard selfie. It was in front of the cathedral which is SO stinking beautiful. They began construction on it in 1221 and based it off of French Gothic design. The architecture is absolutely stunning. You could pay to go tour it. Buuuut… We didn’t.

So because Aaron left with us, he walked with us for quite a while. Debbie ultimately dropped back cause people’s conversations for too long bother her. Aaron walked with me for the first 8 kilometers or so. Talked about his life being in a children’s home, racism in Arkansas, and his goal of opening a school in the D.R. Very interesting. He was a nice guy, just, interesting. He says ‘bless’ ‘bless their heart’ and ‘atta girl’ more than I ever care to hear. So, by the time we got to the first stop I was ready for a break from Aaron. I used waiting for Debbie as my crutch to get him to keep walking. He was going to wait with me. I insisted he didn’t.

We stopped at the cafe, running into Emma, Kirean, Frances, Lisa, and Keith. We sat outside with them until they left. Aaron was inside. As we began to leave, the Aussies came up and sat down. That’s that small time Camino experience. We packed back up and headed out. After a gradual incline, we had lots of flat. But it was absolutely stunning. We were very lucky that everything is green this time of year. We have seen so many Camino pictures of these beautiful fields being yellow, brown, and dried up. We had a pretty steep decline down into Hornillos. I wanted to take a picture at the top with Debbie before we dropped down because it was so dang beautiful. Debbie urged me to push ahead so I did, and I got us two beds at a very adorable albergue in a woman’s house. We washed our clothes in her cute backyard where I left my Fitbit next to the laundry sink and panicked two hours later when I realized it. We went to the first restaurant and ordered from the Pilgrim menu. I finally remembered to not ask for tuna and my salad was perfect! Also, we got to choose water or wine and I decided and clearly ordered water. He definitely brought me wine. Debbie was cracking up saying it must have looked like to him that I needed the wine! Too funny.

Aaron was there, waiting for his friends to decide if they were going to press on or not. While we were there the Aussies passed through, Rupert came through and Valentina! She, Silvano, Rachel, and Rupert had got an air bnb together which was apparently not as glamorous as the rest of us hoped it would be. They were out late so Valentina left, Rachel stayed the day in Burgos and she wasn’t sure what happened to Silvano until he walked in about an hour later as she was leaving. He was staying in Hornillos too. Aaron’s group was and a few other people we met through New York from London and Germany. We went back to the albergue and I laid in bed frantically catching up on my blog, almost falling asleep.

I wanted to go walk around this tiny Town and Debbie was looking for some ice cream- or candy! We checked the town once without much luck and then I did another loop on my own. I went a little farther a different direction and found the supermarket, which had chocolate. I went and told Debbie and then called my Dad for Father’s Day. I talked to my parents and brother for a while which was nice. It was a small town and because of the World Cup, everyone was going to watch the match. It was Mexico vs. Germany and there was a guy from Mexico in the bar with us, jersey and all! Hes been carrying that jersey and wearing it. If you don’t want to know how the game ended, don’t read past this sentence.

Literally no one thought Mexico would win. I didn’t either. So I went to watch the last ten minutes of the game only to be SERIOUSLY surprised along with everyone else that Mexico was up one. Everyone we have met along the way that stayed in Hornillos was in this bar. We watched to the end. Through the excitement of the one guy, tears to his eyes for his team. Everyone applauded for him, it was so incredibly sweet. Silvano was standing with me for a while, talking about soccer and when Italy not being in the World Cup got brought up he immediately threw his hand over his heart and said “we do not speak of this. It is a national tragedy” which was extremely heartfelt and humorous.

Day mileage: 12.9
Total mileage: 202.80
Personal mileage: 14.85