Day 31 and 32, One bad one good

The rain in Spain
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Day 31 & 32, June 17^th and June 18^th

Calzadilla de la Cueza to Sahagun, to El Burgo Ranero

367km to Santiago, 585km from start

Distance: 22km, 18km

An adobe village
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Sunday morning was cold, wet, windy, and depressing. We needed to get an early start but we were both fighting head colds and unhappy to be heading out in this weather. I was feeling pretty sorry for myself, but a pilgrimage is a pilgrimage . . . so we headed out. It stayed crummy all morning but after four and a half hours, we got to our place for the night, Sahagun. It’s a town of 60,000 that was touted in the guide book as a great place to spend a day. Our hotel was fine but aside from a Romanesque church and the ruins of a monastery, it was dull.

Sahagun church
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We were pleasantly surprised to meet the Canadians, Fred and Suzanne, again. They had moved ahead of us but Suzanne got food poisoning from a tuna salad a day earlier, was in rough shape, and had stopped for a rest. They were expecting to be back on the road tomorrow so we promised to meet up on the trail.

They say that everyone will confront the devil on the Camino. If that’s true, we met him that night at dinner. As we were seating, a fellow invited us to join his table. Bill was a retired Brit doing sections of the Camino with a friend. He was quite smart and very inquisitive. He said he was asking everyone he met their reason for walking the Camino and was quite clearly unimpressed with ours. I’m sure he was only trying to be interesting and provocative but we’d just had a bad day and questioning our purpose stung. But that’s what the devil does . . . and we are continuing.

Ultreia - "Forward" a Camino encouragement
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The next day was still cold and cloudy in the morning and the scenery no more interesting but we spent the morning walking with Fred, Suzanne, and their daughter Ella so the stage passed quickly. El Burgo Ranero was another poor rambling little town but the albergue, hotels, and bars were all together so it was a good day to meet people. The sun came out in the afternoon and the beer and food was very inexpensive . . . so things picked up considerably.

We met up with another Canadian couple who were a lot of fun and a German couple at dinner. It was a good day and with the prospect of being in Leon in only two days for a rest break, put us in a much more positive frame of mind.

Villages: Calzadilla de la Cueza, Ledigos, Terradillos de Templarios, Moratinos, San Nicolas, Sahagun, Bercianos del Real Camino, El Burgo Ranero