It was an absolutely perfect day in Spain to walk.  Well, it was for most of the way today. After yesterday’s baking in the sun, we hoped for some clouds or breeze today and we got both.  It was pleasantly cool when we left Bercianos at 7:00am but we expected it to be colder until sunrise after 8:00am. It didn’t matter though because we could see soon enough that the entire sky that we could see around us was covered by clouds.  They didn’t look like rain clouds but they provided shelter for the entire morning. All that changed at lunch though, but that comes later.

Breakfast was unavailable in Bercianos so we had to walk 7.5km to the next town, El Bergo Ranero. There we stumbled on one of the food gems of the Camino.  Pensión Restaurante La Costa del Adobe.  While Melanie still had her coffee and tostas with butter, I was looking on the bar where there is usually a selection of croissants, pan de chocolat, and donuts, but this bar was different.  They had a whole range of homemade cakes as well as delicious looking food. Everyone was raving about the tortilla smothered in a vegetable ragout as well as the grilled pork belly and other delicacies.  I went for the tarte de manzana (something like flan on pastry dough with apple slices and a apple caramel sauce on top. It was out of this world.  We were looking at their dinner menu and our mouths were drooling. Melanie wants to take a taxi 19km back for dinner but stingy old me quashed that thought.  Maybe next time.

Prying ourselves away from that restaurant, we continued on our way up the road.  By the way, when I say “we continued on up the road”, I really mean it. The whole trail today was along a single, almost abandoned two lane road on a lovely dirt walking track with some small rocks. The trail was arrow straight for the first 7km and I only counted about seven slight deviations of direction. I can’t drive a car that straight for 26km. I’d have to use ropes to tie down the steering wheel from movement.  Shortly after the restaurant, we were walking down the middle of the Main Street and there was a kid’s hopscotch game drawn on the street.  Melanie showed off her skills by doing it and, not to be outdone, I followed suit. Then I looked behind me and two Korean girls were following behind.  I told them they had to do the ö game as it was part of the official trail.  Without slowing down or missing a step, both Koreans jumped at the chance to play. After they did it, they asked if we knew a good place to get breakfast…. Now, not only did they have to walk backwards, away from Santiago, 100m, the rules also state that you also have to do the hopscotch backwards too.

Lunch had to wait until the 20km mark for the day in the town Reliegos. Maybe we should have taxied back to La Costa del Adobe. We had drinks as well as a croissant ham. & cheese sandwich and a tortilla slice. It was okay but not gourmet. The bigger problem with lunch though was that as we sat at a table out front, enjoying our rest and chatting with other pilgrims, something horrible happened and it was so sudden, even the grown men were seen crying.  I would not have thought it was possible but it happened – the sun burned qa through the clouds and immediately raised the temperature several degrees Celsius.  We still had 6km to walk today and suddenly having to do it in the sun drove me so crazy, I started making up stories about myself and other pilgrim.  For example, “even the grown men were seen crying”.  I mean, really?  Who would believe that, right?

Who we saw today reflects the fact that everyone walks their own Camino. A lot of the people we have been close to on varies stages of the walk are walking faster and further, slower and shorter, or taking rest days or “bus” days. Some were never planning on completing the Camino this time.  We did meet Poh who has been around for a while and we walked a bit with Brin too.  We met Kiara on the way to dinner and we’ve chatted briefly with her many times but never knew her name.  There is also one young American couple that Melanie chatted with in Burgos. They recently married and decided to put that decision to the test on the Camino.  So far, so good as a couple but they have had bad blister problems so they took a bus through a few stops and took some rest days too. They were walking today though and it was a good (almost whole) day for that. 

One more story from the day… as I do every day or two during the walk, for a quiz, I ask Melanie how many kilometers have we walked today.  I have the GPS watch so she will be guessing. Melanie guessed 15km.  I knew that was right, so I asked her 15 point what? She replied 15.3km.  I had to check the distance this time and it was right.  We had actually walked 15.32km at that point.  I was impressed so I asked again, 15.3 what?  Her immediate response was 15.32km WHAT???   But then sóhe continued: 15.327847km. I showed her my watch as she took a few more steps.  She looked at it and said “so I’m right”.  I said I was impressed that she had it correct except for the extra. 0.007847.  Melanie said, “So I was even more accurate then, tight”?  How do you figure?  After a couple of more steps, Melanie said that my watch was showing the distance as 15.33 km.  She probably really was closer to the correct distance since my watch only shows down to one hundredth of a kilometer.

Same story as always, I need sleep and you need to forgive my typos. 

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