Santo Domingo de la Calzada to Belorado – 23.1km, 5.75 hours, Hotel Jacabeo, 69€

I hate the graffiti on the Camino, as well as other places, but I liked the sentiment of one line I saw today. It wasn’t worded exactly like the title of this blog. In fact, it was oddly opposite, (“Exchange your memories with dreams”) but it got me thinking. I twisted it into my title. Dream all you want but the key is to go out and do those things you are dreaming about. Turn them into memories.

And why am I all the sudden sounding like a high school philosophy student?? Because, I guess, this was Day 11 of the Camino. We are about a third of the way through this walk and it has been said that the first third is about your body. You quickly get in shape but you will likely be pretty sore. The second third is about the mind. You have time to think. A LOT of time to think about everything. Your head is down, you are just putting one foot in front of the other on pretty flat land, you have few distractions. It can be surprising the things you think about. Finally, the last third of the walk is about your soul. That’s when it gets fun but I’ll leave that for later.

Before we even set out of the door today, we were already happy. The Baltimore Orioles came from behind yet again and beat the LA Angels. While on a semi-religious pilgrimage, I am not sure it is a great thing to cheer the downfall of Angels but I’m doing it anyway. My grandson George is a big O’s fan and that game would have made him happy too.

Today’s walk started out in the cool morning just before sunrise. We covered 4.67km in the first hour so I was happy and thinking this will be an easy day. We stopped in Grañon for a delicious egg and bacon, isotonic drink (my fuel) and cafe con leche (Melanie’s fuel). Note to anyone following us, there is a food truck parked at the entrance to Grañon with wonderful shaded picnic tables across the street. Give it a miss. There is at least one bar in the village 100m further on that pays rent and serves much better food and drink. The food truck was doing a roaring trade when we got there so to avoid the queue, we walked on. While we ate at the next bar, several pilgrims walked past and complained about the food truck. Terrible coffee, rude service and little fresh food selection were some of the comments. We lucked out.

Shortly after Grañon though, the sun started burning my backside. I put up the umbrella a little earlier than normal and kept at least my head cool. We stopped at two of the next four towns too to share another isotonic drink. I’m addicted but they are so good here.

Belorado is a strange little town in Spain. Most towns and villages seem to be on hilltops. Belorado is built more in a valley which is why we couldn’t see it as we approached. We had seen a building outside of town writhing a billboard announcing our hotel was only 3km away but that turned out to be a lie. We actually had 5km to go. As we came around one corner on on the trail, we were suddenly at the first albergue of the village so we had about 100m of warning that we arrived. Even then, we still had 1.1km to go to get to our hotel. As a village, I’m not too impressed so far but that first albergue looked nice. It had a swimming pool, pilgrim’s lunch / dinner, breakfast, a bed, a shower, and a place to clean your clothes, all for 10€ per person. Not bad at all even if it adds 1km to tomorrow’s walk.

Since I just slagged off Belorado, I should counter that by saying we loved Santo Domingo de la Calzada. In fact, we even did our usual practice of picking out a house on a small square to set up our pilgrim support business. “Dream big” I always say, but make them memories.

Peace y’all. Goodnight George and Leo. We miss you guys.