A short day, on a flat and pretty trail, we crushed our pace record for this Camino with the average kilometer taking a little less that 13 minutes.  With backpacks and stopping for photos, directions, dealing with passing pilgrims, that speed is not too bad.  One pleasant surprise was meeting Susi in a tiny, stand up bar where we went for an early breakfast.  A donut and Fanta limón is the breakfast of real champions.

The only unusual thing about today’s walk was much of it was on a very nice track but right next to the main road connecting the towns heading west.  After a little more than 3km, we reached the village Población de Campos.  At that point, there were two paths with some arrows pointing across a bridge and straight up the road and others, less obvious, pointing down a country lane.  I remembered this from two years ago and we took the country lane, along side of a mostly hidden river, for the next 4km.  It was a wonderful, quiet trail and I would only have taken the road option if I was desperate for food or toilet facilities.  

We did move over to the road route to go into Revenga de Campos for…, you guessed it, food and toilet facilities. We had to stop in the bar for an urgent matter and while we were there, we just had to have a drink and shared a tortilla (egg & potato crustless pie) breakfast #2.  Thee nice barman smiled when I asked for salsa picante for the tortilla and he brought out a small dish of his homemade salsa. It was outstanding!  It was barely hot-spicy but the flavor was out of this world.

We could have backtracked a little to get back to the river route but we decided just to continue up the road for the last two kilometers of the alternative paths. In total, the last 12km of the walk was along side of the busy P-980 all the way to Carrión de Los Condes. 

By the way, I heard that “Carrión de Los Condes” was the inspiration for a famous song by the band, Kansas, and it is Spanish for “Carrión my wayward son”.  I bet you never knew that. 

We did make one tiny detour at the small village of Villalcazázar de Sirga.  There is a nice large bar that has now served us on our third Camino Francés in the past 13 years.  While they didn’t recognize us, they still served two small cold drinks and a small bread/pizza for 10€. We gladly paid the highly inflated rate for the tradition.  The pizza made with yesterday’s leftover bread counted as breakfast #3. 

Between Villalcázar de Sirga and Carrión de los Condes, we had our big climb of the day. The trail had an 50m mountain that they forced us to ascend over the last 5km. The incline of 1% was enough to take your breath away (if you held your breath the whole way).  

Once in our final destination,we quickly figured out that our hotel is right in front of the  beautiful 12th century church of Santa Maria del Camino.  That church is famous for a depiction at the entrance of a miracle attributed to Santa Maria del Camino when the “tradition” of an annual tribute of 100 maidens imposed by the Moorish rulers on the Christian population of Spain was finally broken.  After that miracle, the Moors had to get their maidens the old fashioned way, picking them up in bars.

After a quick shower, we walked a short 100m up the road to a laundromat to wash our clothes and a nearby bar to get a small lunch. We met Peppi along the way but she wanted something more substantial for lunch than a bocadillo. 

After siesta, we went out in search of dinner.  We picked up Irish Michael on the way, just bumping into him while he was looking too. Melanie sent a note to Susi who was keen to join us after a singing session at her albergue. We found a restaurant on the Plaza Mayor that would open at 7:00pm (early in Spain) so we just had a drink until we could be seated.  (Younger) Michael’s friend, Brin, joined us as well. Bris is ex-British armed forces so he had some good stories to tell. Once again, we laughed the night away and we know we are very fortunate to be here.

Peace y’all. Goodnight George, Leo and Stella. We love you all.

“If I am not for myself, who will be for me? And if I am only for myself, what am I? And if not now, when?”

   ~Rabbi Hillel the Elder, as quoted to us by a Puerto Rican man, living in Washington, DC and now walking the Camino