Castrojeriz → Frómista
Distance: 15.6 miles / 25.2km
Elevation: +890ft, -965ft
I woke up at 6:20am this morning to my alarm. It was pretty difficult to wake up and get going this morning, but eventually Tovin and I both got up and packed for the morning. We ended up leaving the hostel by around 7:30am and started walking for the day. It was a slightly longer day today, so we mentally prepared ourselves when we started walking. Tovin was feeling really good, but it was also his first day on the trail, compared to my 17th...
About a mile in, there was a big hill that we had to climb up which made for quite the trek first thing in the morning. Although it looked daunting and certainly wasn’t a walk in the park, it wasn’t as bad as I was expecting either. I think all the walking so far has made inclines a lot easier to manage.
View from the bottom (left) and view from the top (right) - 360 feet of elevation gain
It was about a 6 mile / 10k stretch to the first town and the landscape after the hill was very flat, brown, and agricultural. Tovin said it reminded him of Nebraska. While it wasn’t the most interesting or the most scenic walk, it was fun to do it with Tovin still. He commented a lot on the amount of toilet paper and poop that he had seen near the trail. Since there can be long stretches between towns, people sometimes just use nature as a bathroom and don’t clean up after themselves very well, which can be quite disgusting to multiple senses as you walk along.
When we finally made it to the first town, we ran into some familiar faces, Jeff and Kate from Washington D.C., and we chatted with them for a bit after I introduced Tovin. Then we went to grab some breakfast at the cafe. He got a tortilla with mushroom in it (an egg and potato cake) and I got a salmon brioche open faced sandwich that they cooked with a blowtorch. It was quite the preparation for a small cafe that was basically in the middle of nowhere.
After our snack, we applied sunscreen and kept walking - the scenery got a little better. It was another fairly long stretch to the next town, but it felt a bit more manageable walking with Tovin. We ran into some friends of mine from nights one and two, Maureen and Beatrice, and said hi to them and talked for a bit.
We found some shade and took a break for a bit. More commentary on the amount of poop and toilet paper. Later, we passed some aqueducts that Tovin found really interesting, and then soon after came up on a river.
Somewhere in this area, Tovin wanted to feel how heavy my pack was, and ended up carrying it for me along with his to our town for the night, probably 6 or so miles. What a trooper! When we passed Maureen, she thought it was hysterical and took our photo, nicknaming him "Two Pack Perregrino."
Our path went right along the river, and it was a beautiful walk, especially since I felt about 18 pounds lighter. When we saw the river, we thought about dipping our feet in, but we took a closer look, the water was very murky and it didn’t really look like we should test it out.
We kept walking and before long we made it to Frómista! At that point, our feet were starting to hurt and we were glad to have finally arrived. It was quite the wait to get checked in, because some albergues use a QR code system to get pilgrims checked in, and they really recommend you scan and fill out the QR code before you go up talk to someone. However, these 2 old guys in front of us didn’t, so the rest of us waiting had to just wait while they filled theirs out (about 20 minutes). It didn't help that they only spoke Spanish, and the hostel worker only spoke English and Hungarian! What a strange place. Finally though, we got shown to our beds and our bunks were right across from our friends, Jeff and Kate!
We got the beds in a section that was slightly separated off from the rest of the room and was near the window which was very nice. I got showered and cleaned up while Tovin did our laundry, and then he showered. After we were both clean and laundry was hung up, we went to a nearby bar and got a drink and tortilla as a snack to split - I got a red wine and he got a local beer on tap.
We went back to the albergue briefly for Tovin to change into a sweater, and then checked out the grocery store since Tovin was curious what a Spanish grocery store was like. We ended up getting some stuff for a picnic lunch tomorrow on our walk!
There was supposed to be a free concert at the church across the street, but we were too tired to go. While we were talking to Maureen at the albergue though, she got a text from someone, yelled "Oh my god, the organ has died!" and ran out of the room, across the street to the church. She seems to have contact with everyone we meet.
At around 6:30pm, we passed the restaurant in town that was pretty much the only place for dinner. They opened at 7pm, but didn’t have much seating, and since it was the only place to eat, it was going to get very busy.
It was still 30 minutes to opening, and people were already waiting, so I decided to wait in line and hold down the fort while Tovin dropped our groceries back at the albergue. While we sat and waited, we decided for Tovin to extend his trip another 2 days! It took a bit, but we figured out some of the logistics of changing his flight and how he’s going to get back to Minneapolis on Wednesday.
At 7pm, they opened the doors, and there wasn’t really any seating for parties of 2, only tables of 4 - we ended up sitting at a table with a middle-aged Korean couple. They didn’t speak much English, so we didn’t make too much conversation. However, the meal was delicious. I got morcilla (a type of blood sausage that’s a speciality in Burgos/Leon region. It sounds scary but it’s actually very very good) with fried eggs on top of French fries. Tovin got Iberian ribs with fries. We split our dishes so we each had a bit of both, and it was a very good, filling meal.
It was definitely the most substantive and genuinely quality meal I’ve had so far on the Camino. Most pilgrim menus/communal dinners are a lot of pasta, lentil/chickpea stews, salads, and other foods that you can easily prepare a lot of. They also gave us flan for dessert which was yummy.
After dinner, Tovin and I went for a walk around town to walk off some of the food. We walked to the edge of town and sat on a bench for a while. While we were sitting there, four little kittens came crawling out from behind the gate of a residence and were playing around near us. None of them wanted much attention from us, but they were cute to watch. Eventually, another white and orange cat came walking over and rubbed against my shoe, looking like it was more open to being pet.
I pet it for a bit and it looked happy to be pet, although it also kept moving just out of reach from me - but also would jump onto the bench where we were sitting and curl up next to us. Very cute.
Finally, we walked back to the albergue where we sat on the couch together for a bit and then got ready for bed. We were both definitely pretty tired by the time we got into bed and it was very nice to lay down and rest after the long day of walking.
