Breakfast #1 today was at our albergue and it was a bit disappointing.  When I remembered that it was already included in the price of the room, I suddenly liked it a bit more.  I had a tiny glass of grocery store orange juice and a small, factory made croissant. Nothing else was available in town so our next real opportunity was more than two hours away.  Melanie at least had a decent coffee and real Spanish toast. 

The walk was mostly flat as we were already in the Meseta so the kilometers passed by faster that normal.  The fun part was keeping an eye out for the village of Hontanas at the 10.7km mark on the trail. There is a small valley in the Meseta and the founders of the town figured that no one could invade their town if they could not see it while riding across the flat plateau.  From any reasonable distance, thee plateau looks never ending until the mountains hundreds of kilometers away.  At Hontanas, we look for the tops of a few taller buildings but you can still only see them when you get within a few hundred meters.

A highlight of Hontanas was the first place for food, an albergue / cafe.  Not only did they have good food, service and toilets, they also had the worlds oldest puppy.  I don’t know what breed he was but this “puppy” looked like a full grown Labrador with too much snow white fur with a few large black spots.  He walked from pilgrim to pilgrim leaning up against their legs saying “okay, you can pet me now but you better do a good job or I’m leaving”.  If you were seated and I go red the dog, he would put his paw on the arm of your chair.  I’d swear he looked like he was about to start drumming his nails to show you he was running out of patience.  We thought about dog-napping him but everyone knows that dog.  By the way, Hontanas looks like a great place to spend a night on the Camino.  Oh yeah,that dog place, they put four ice cubes  in our soft drink. So far, that’s two more than any other place on the Camino this year and three more than most. Only three years ago,it was difficult to get any ice for a soft drink. 

Our next stop today was at the ruins of San Anton. This is a special place and if you are adventurous and 40 years younger than Melanie and I, you can even sleep there overnight on the Camino.  There is still a small portion of the monastery that has a roof overhead.  If they any electricity or plumbing, it would lose its charm.the priests here wore a Tau cross that looks like a capital “T”.  You can still see that carved in several places around the ruins.  

The final surprise of the day was our room in Castrojeriz. We are in a Casa Rural, a classification that basically means that we are renting a room in someone’s house.  Not only is our hostess gracious and helpful, she has a stunningly gorgeous house.  In fact, we are in the newly renovated house next door owned by her brother that is even nicer.  This house has massive open concept living room / dining room / kitchen, a large terrace, two en-suite bedrooms, a large foyer between the front door and entrance to the house, and a double wide stairway on the main level.  On the level above, there are five en-suite bedrooms.  Above that is a large, walk_in attic for storage.  For the fun of it, there are two lower levels where the brother lives but I didn’t see that. Magnificent. 

And now, I sleep…. Peace y’all.  

Goodnight George, Leo and Stella. And a final Happy Birthmonth to George. 

p.s. WiFi in this place is awful. I can’t add anymore photos of San Anton. If it’s not one thing….