Tosantos → Agés
Distance: 14.75 miles / 23.7km
Elevation: +1431ft, -973ft
Today was a pretty decent day. I’m feeling a little better after yesterday. I woke up around 6:45am, later than I have so far on the Camino. I got up and got ready for the day and got breakfast at the donativo with Mark and some others. I had some toast with butter for breakfast and then tried to get a move on relatively quick. It was drizzling and cold this morning. I put my rain cover on my pack and my poncho on over that and then got walking for the day.
Today I was really dreading the walk because my feet and ankles hurt a lot when I first woke up this morning. My body really desperately needs a rest day, but Burgos (in 2 days) is the most logical place to do it. I walked by myself for most of the morning and eventually stopped in Villafranca where I got a coffee and an open faced tuna bread. Villafranca was the last town for about 7 miles, and we were going to be walking through forest for a while so I used the bathroom and got ready for the long stretch.
I walked alone for a while and there was a very big hill that I had to walk up. I was walking next to some bikers that tried their hardest to pedal up but it was such a steep hill they eventually ended up walking their bikes up the hill. I spent some time walking on my own and Mark eventually caught up to me.
It was nice to have the company and we walked and chatted together for a while. I tried to take the walk pretty easy today since my ankles were hurting and I had already reserved a bed for the night, so I didn’t need to worry about rushing to get a spot. It was foggy and misty and honestly a very beautiful walk, even if it did get quite tiring after a while.
It’s nice to have towns every few kilometers or so to sit and let your feet rest, because the miles and miles of no breaks is what causes you to get blisters and that 7/8 mile stretch with no breaks was getting tough.
Finally though, we made it to San Juan de Ortega where Mark and I stopped for a snack. Before we stopped though, we came across these horses in a pasture and I had an apple in my bag that I cut up into a quarters and we fed the horses.
At the cafe in town, we ran into Sunday and Jennifer there. Sunday asked me “guess what I have” and I asked what, and he pulled a little bird out of his pocket! He said he saw it hopping across the path, and he felt bad and had carried it for the past 3 hours or so. Eventually, he realized he had to let the bird go and it was sad to see it go, Sunday even ended up crying.
I took a look around the church in San Juan and then kept on walking. From San Juan, I had about 2 miles to go to Agés where I was stopping for the day. I walked with a man named Dominic that I hadn’t spoken with much personally up to this point but we had mutual Camino friends so we walked together for a while.
Eventually, we got to Agés and I checked into my albergue. There’s only 4 beds in my room and there’s a private bathroom, which felt like living in luxury after the past 2 days of sleeping on mats on the floor in donativos. I got a bottom bunk and then unpacked and met the other guy in the room, a man from Taiwan. We chatted for a bit (part of it in Mandarin) and then I took a shower and washed my clothes.
I hung up my laundry and then came back up to the room and took a nap for an hour or so. I haven’t slept super well the past few nights, especially last night where there was a guy who snored so loud, multiple people ended up dragging their mats into the hallway to get away from the noise. I have genuinely never heard someone snore like that before, I normally don’t wake up to snorers in albergues since I have a good pair of ear plugs (shoutout Sun Country) but at one point I woke up last night thinking a truck was driving past or something. I couldn’t really believe it when I realized that sound was coming from a human.
Anyway, it was nice to rest and catch up on some sleep. After waking up, I walked around town a bit and went down to the bar across town (it’s a small town so “across town” was about a 3 minute walk away) and had a drink and then came back to the albergue. The albergue is right on top of a restaurant so I came back and sat in the restaurant for a bit and ended up eating dinner.
The pilgrim menu came with wine and bread, and I chose pasta salad as my starter and some braised chicken with fries as my entree. I had a bit of flan for dessert. It was very good, although I think my appetite is finally starting to catch up to me. I haven’t eaten all that much the past week or so but now that my body has adjusted to walking so much every day, I was still feeling a little hungry after eating all that for dinner. I drank some water though and went back up to my room. I got ready for bed, grabbed my laundry which hadn’t quite dried yet since it was pretty cold and dreary out, and spent some time looking into some things to see/do in Burgos tomorrow.
I’ve decided to take a full rest day in Burgos since my legs and feet really need it. I spent some time journaling and then tried to go to bed early since I wanted to catch up on some sleep. Today was certainly a better day than yesterday and even though my legs and feet are incredibly tired and hurting quite a bit, I’m still feeling good overall.
