As I said the Hostel at Village Franca was pretty good. Really nice showers. After we had checked out what was available in the town we decided to have dinner at the hostel/Hotel it was 7:00pm they had a large dining room. We headed down just before 7:00pm and there was a big queue of guests waiting. We were seated and given menus, bread, bottled water and a bottle of red wine. I had potatoes with chorizo sausage for a starter so did Ray, Bruce had Garlic Soup. Then we had a French man join us and he didn’t speak a word of English so he had a quiet dinner. For the next course Bryce and I had the Cod with tomato sauce which was rich and buttery. And it came with chips, Ray had the pork but didn’t think it was cooked properly. I was very happy with the fish. You need the calories after all the walking. For dessert it was a small piece of Tiramisu for Ray and I and Bryce had the icecream but he gave that to Ray as he doesn’t really do desserts. But Ray loves a good ice cream in fact just about anything sweet. After dinner we headed up to get ready for bed and pack stuff for the morning. It takes a while to sort everything out. As we went off to sleep there was a symphony of snoring in the large room we were in. I didn’t hear it as I had my Loop Ear Plugs in and I was already asleep and contributing to said symphony. The bed was a little bit hard in the middle a bar down the middle which meant sore hips again waking me up. But it was still a good sleep.
I woke at about 5:30 and decided to get up I said to Bryce I wasn’t sure if I would be able to get into the reception area to leave my bag to be collected. So went back to bed for a few minutes and then got up. My feet are slowly starting to look better. This morning we had a big hill to climb out of Villa Franca probably about 4-5 kms with about 500m elevation. As we started the climb in the midst again a deer shot out in front of us from the bushes crossing the road. We were moving pretty quickly again and caught most of the pilgrims who had left before us. Just after the top of the hill had a hard case Spanish guy playing Pink Floyd on his speaker and selling breakfast goods for a 1 euro donation. He was lovely, we all had a pastry and I had a banana as well. We walked through the forest for about another 6kms and then finally arrived at San Juan de Ortega for breakfast and it was good. The coffee was good for the Camino, the Tortilla or Spanish Omelette was excellent as well in fact one of the best so far. It had courgette in it. We headed off again and chose to stick to the main route as we needed to, for us to reach our destination. We walked through a forest and then came to a whole lot of open land where you could see for miles. There was a town called Atapuerca for a quick drinks break before we were ready to hit the big hill ahead of us. We had about 6kms ahead to our accommodation for the night. And most of it was on a hill with rocky paths and was hard going on the feet.
The crack up thing was a bus advertising our accomodation for the night and it said 250m they are somewhat optimistic with distances. It was more like 800m, but we arrived. We have our own room with 4 Bunks and we may get someone else join us later on. We are doing dinner at the hostel we think our host is South American but she really doesn’t speak any English which makes it funny to communicate. In the photos they emphasis the pool, which would be awesome in summer but it is actually tiny they must have used a very wide angle lens lol. We even have our own bathroom with a bidet! Ray and Bryce have headed down the road to the local bar for some food and drink. My bag hasn’t arrived yet so I am waiting for it to arrive to have a shower and put some
Laundry on.
There was a lovely church in San Juan de Ortega where I took some photos. I managed to talk to each of my kids and to Yona as I walked this morning in the Forrest on the top
Of the big hill. Felt in a really good head space today and the feet generally feel better I am going to carry my bag tomorrow as it is only 14km to Burgos which is a large city and we have booked a two bedroom apartment, which we are all looking forward to. Anyway I am going to see if my bag has been delivered yet. So that is it for me today.
Nga mihi
Mike
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