As we left town and hit the dreaded Meseta region of the Camino, which is supposed to be very flat and boring, the Camino throws one last obstacle at you: a huge hill.
Yeah, I know, it doesn't look too bad, and I guess the path looks like it winds up a nice, gentle way.
Tell that to my legs and lungs!
Here's the obligatory, "Oh, I'm not struggling to breathe and walk at the same time! I've just stopped here to take a photo!" photo:
After a million hours of climbing later (or maybe half an hour at most) we arrived at the top to some stunning views. You can make out the town we left that morning in the distance.
And of course, the moment we got up the top of the huge hill it started pouring.
But positive side: it didn't rain as we were climbing up, and it didn't rain on the scary steep descent on the other side of the hill.
The fields we walked through were so luscious and green. We passed so many different types of wildflowers. By far, my favourite thing about the Camino is walking through endless fields of wildflowers.
At about the 14km mark we ran into Chris and John one last time. They were going to be staying at a cute little electricity-free church for the evening, with John staying to make sure Chris did the right thing by his legs.
Here's the cute St James statue in the church:
And I realise I haven't shared Chris's photo here before, so here he is posing for us with his walking poles, how we always remember him and his robot stride:
We had lunch with John and realised this would probably be the last time we'd see him; very bitter-sweet.
The rest of the walk was largely uneventful, and was mostly alongside a gorgeous canal.
And then we got to Fromista, our destination for the evening.
After a confusing search, we eventually found the municipal albergue. It was on the other side of this castle-looking church, and very badly signposted.
If I can give you one piece of advice it is this: NEVER NEVER STAY HERE. It was the WORST. So cold, no atmosphere, and worst of all? THE HOSPITALERIOS SMOKED IN THEIR PRIVATE ROOMS UNDER THE DORMS. Everything smelled of smoke. It was filthy.
We went out for dinner and it was absolutely revolting. I think the pasta had been boiling for about three hours, it was so mushy and tasteless.
So we decided on having a second dinner. Yes, that's totally a thing. And perfectly acceptable when you've walked a million kilometres.
Well, it was just good luck that we had such a bad first dinner, because who should be leaving the second restaurant just as we entered it? Our friends from Roncesvalles! Philip, Anne and Elma. It was wonderful to run into them, especially after farewelling John and Chris and thinking we weren't going to see anymore of our original group. It was just wonderful.
Then, bedtime. Of course we had another hideous snorer in the room. It's alright for snorers: they sleep perfectly well. Everyone else has the worst night's sleep ever. Then people decided that 5am was a good time to get ready to go. Oh, we won't leave til 7, but we'll start getting ready at 5. And we're so nice that we won't turn on the light, but we're going to open the door to give us light... And leave it open when we go so the outside light and noise still comes in. So considerate.
I'll end up this rant with some pictures of wildflowers to cleanse the palette, shall I?
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