Episode Transcript
DAY 10 MORNING BEFORE WALKING
OK, Day 10. 10 days in. It's kind of crazy? Going from Santo Domingo to Bellorado. Or “Bulbasauria.” Along the way, we're going to catch them all on the “Poke-mino”. Is there a Psyduck out there though? That's what I want to know. It might have been if I hadn't had some Neurofen last night. True. Alright, well, it's quite cool outside, but the sun is shining so, see how we go. Should be quite an easy day. Hopefully. I've got my ankle taped up today after being bit sprained overnight. Let's test that out and see how that works. Feels a bit better already. It just needs to last 20 kilometres and then like another 500 or something, it'll be fine.
DAY 10 SUMMARY
Hi everyone, and welcome to Is This The Way, a podcast where we walk the Camino de Santiago. I'm Francesca. And I'm Gaven.
And it's Day Ten. Walking from Santo Domingo to Bellorado. And in our case, stopping just before Bellarado. Yeah, but out of choice we chose a hotel just out of the town. That actually was really nice and well worth stopping at. Yeah, it was like Albergue / basic hotel, or simple hotel, I guess just outside of town. But it had really nice pictures of lawns and things like that, and private rooms, which were really affordable, because it's on the outskirts of town. Yeah, I remember when we got there, we walked up and you just see like nice green grass and shady trees and things. It's like, “Oh my God, they've got a pool.” Yep, they had a pool. It was very cold. It was cold, but it was amazing. So particularly for aches and the heat and everything, it was amazing to go for a very cold swim. Yeah. And then, interestingly, there weren't that many pilgrims there, but there seemed to be a lot of people coming and stopping on their holidays and road trips. But yeah, we ended up sitting in the shade outside and having ice cream and having lunch and dinner and just chilling out. And it was really pleasant. Yeah, we basically just stayed outside the front of the hotel with under these shady tables all day.
Spoiler alert, one of the reasons we stayed outside the hotel the whole day is because I couldn't walk anymore. Yeah, unfortunately, we're getting to a pretty serious injury at this point in time. By the time we stopped here, my, my ankle was quite sore. And after we actually stopped freshened up a little bit and sat down, I struggled even to walk from the room out to the outdoor tables. Yeah, it's not good. I think we'll touch on that in a little bit, about some of the things you can do to try and mitigate – strapping tape and painkillers. Yeah, exactly. This is where we first talked about, well, I could just take a taxi to the next stage or something and you could walk it, which is probably a sensible approach for people because then you can have a day to rest your leg. But I'm extremely stubborn. And also doing this Camino like after leaving our lives behind and packing everything up and being here, I really didn't want to miss a single stage of it, even if I meant kind of like walking through some pain. So I think if you have a high pain threshold and a high level of idiocy, then you can pursue Gaven's approach – determined idiocy. Sorry, yes, that's true. Determined idiocy.
But perhaps to rewind a little bit, the guidebook says “relish agricultural vistas of lush wheat fields, visit the birth place of Santo Domingo and cross into Castilla y Leon.” Yeah, so it also says today's 22.9 kilometers. And we were just a little bit short of that because we stopped short of town at 22.1. It rates it a one out of three difficulty. We'd probably give it like a three out of 10 and that it's one of the easier days, probably easier than the average. It says 5 to 6 hours in the guidebook, it took us just under 4 hours.
But yeah, I think we talk about it a bit later, but it's not the most scenic day. You follow the road for quite a lot of it. There's no very iconic things to see along the way. Like we've had most days. There's usually something really interesting. Well, there was the crazy field of sunflowers, which was pretty cool, like sunflowers as far as you could see with this blue sky above them. True. That is pretty iconic and also passing into a new autonomous region. So Castilla y Leon is the largest autonomous region in Spain. Almost exactly half of the Camino Frances is located within it and it's just big. Is this where we hit the Meseta region later on? Is that also within here where it becomes quite dry? And yeah, so we've got that coming up I think in the next few days. So I remember vast wheat fields, very, very dry, like less shade, less trees and things. Yeah, exactly. So I think we're still on the outskirts of La Rioja. So we still have the sort of red earth and some vineyards and a little bit of trees. But I think you're right, it kind of dies off quite quickly. And I'm guessing you get a little bit more water around these regions as well than what you do on the Meseta, which is probably why it's a bit more green and has some big trees and things.
There's a nice coffee stop in the morning at Granon, which is basically like a converted bus which has coffee cart inside it. Yeah, nice coffee, nice snacks, some nice seats and things out underneath the trees. Yeah, it was probably maybe the fanciest coffee because pretty much everything that we have and obviously we talk about coffee a lot because we are constantly needing that caffeine top up – because I'm slightly obsessed – And you are even before very much obsessed with coffee. We were getting little cortados along the way because it's just like a nice a small amount of milk and it's really hard to screw them up. Yeah, this is probably the 1st place where I would feel more confident getting like a flat white or like some sort of more complicated coffee because it was a really hipster type cafe. Yeah, versus the little family cafes where everyone can make a cortado and the coffee doesn't have to be amazing or perfect or perfectly steamed milk or any of these kind of things. And it's still perfectly drinkable. Yeah I know, and those stops are great. It's just more this was the first one that had the nice branding and the nice aesthetic and design. It's like they put a lot of thought into making this coffee shop. Yeah, great. Stop. Cool.
So one other question to cover off today is came from one of our listeners, “what's the bathroom situation on the Camino?” Very important – simple question with possibly very complicated answer depending on your gender and your bathroom frequency requirements. At the most basic level, what you want to do is use your bathroom in the morning and the afternoon when you're at accommodation that has nice bathrooms as much as possible. And then obviously bring tissues with you along the way. I mean, generally because the because of the way the Camino is designed, you're always stopping at little towns that either have facilities or cafes that have bathrooms or restaurants that have bathrooms. So particularly someone like me who is not used to using nature as a bathroom. I think I was able to get through maybe 3/4 of the Camino before I had to use the woods. Yeah, well, there were a couple of days there where there were big, long stretches of just nothing. And nature had to take one for the team. Yeah, I think we come to that later, because it was like a really big deal. I did this. But anyway, that's a whole other story. But yeah, you're right. I think generally it's not too bad. And I'm sure most people aren't as precious as I am in terms of being able to find a bush somewhere. Most days there's coffee shops and things as you say, and most shops have facilities. But definitely recommend taking hand sanitizer because quite often you'll find soap will be empty or something like that. And definitely want to have a few packets of tissues, where it's a little bit more rustic perhaps it's quite useful to have those on hand. I mean to be honest, hand sanitizer maybe in the past would have been something you'd need to think about. I guess most people bring that now when they travel, but you definitely want it for those types of visits. So yeah, anyway, luckily it's okay, it's manageable, it's fine. You don't need to worry about it too much. Like I said, there's only those couple of really long days and there was there were some stops on those days, but I think slightly with the timing and things as well. We got into like small towns quite early and there was nothing open. So we ended up a couple of days doing like 20 kilometers or so without any facilities or stops along the way. Yeah, but we'll complain about those later. Well, you might complain about it. I kind of laugh about it, I think. No, for sure. I'm obviously joking.
But one thing that we didn't need to worry about today and over the next few days as well was the weather. So finally we'll stop talking about the heat wave because it has formally broken and I don't think it comes back really properly. I don't think so. I think later on there were bush fire warnings or something that came through, but that didn't really affect us. I think that was down in the South of Spain towards like around Malaga and those kind of areas. But yeah, there were all these like, warnings and things on the weather apps, and I think we had a couple of alert warnings on the emergency SMS thing coming through, saying that there's bush fires, be careful. But if it came near the Camino routes, it wasn't on the days that we were walking through because people were talking about it. But I don't think the heat ever came about quite the same in those first few days.
But it's good timing because coming back to the beginning, Gaven has an injury. So having to not also walk in heat wave I think makes a big difference. We do have our first rest day coming up soon as well. Yes, in a few days. Two days, Two more days. Is it day 12 or day 13? I think we did 12 days before we rested. Yeah. Yeah.
So should we see how it got on? Yeah. Let's see how it goes.
DAY 10 AFTERNOON AFTER WALKING
That day ten afternoon in Bellorado. Sitting in the shade at very nice accommodation for the night. Kind of albergue plus hotel, simple hotel, yeah, it's really nice because we've stopped outside of the town on the way in. And actually these stops we tend to like quite a lot because they're not in like the busy town. It's this one's literally surrounded by fields and backs onto like a little mountain with like pine forests and things. So it just smells really clean. It's generally a lot quieter than the places we've been the last few nights. It's like very chilled. The hotel A Santiago in Bellorado.
So we haven't actually been into Bellorado town proper yet. Normally we would have walked down into the town after dropping our things and getting changed. But my ankle is quite sore today, so we decided to pass up any extra walking and we'll go and see Bellorado town in the morning. Yeah, it's just really pleasant here. Yeah, exactly. It's like so chilled outside here. Loads of nice trees and some nice green lawn and lots of shade for a change. Everything's been like really dry and really brown, I guess. Or stone in the in the towns, which is lovely, but it's just nice to have some greenery around. Yeah, and lots of flowers. And quite a few pilgrims like stopped for lunch, but they all walked on into town, whereas we now seem to be with holiday, some people who are actually on holiday rather than pilgrims this afternoon. There are a few pilgrims around, but I guess most people went on into town to keep going.
Today was probably the one day where if for some reason you didn't do it, you really didn't miss out on anything. It was mostly following the main road, which is a real shame because the scenery is still very pleasant, but on the other side of you, you've got a main road with a lot of heavy traffic as well. So yeah, lots of big trucks barrelling past. And then lots of construction where they're like looks like they're widening the road as well because it's single carriageway. It looks like they're going to split it into a bigger dual carriageway highway through there. Yeah, and if it's not that then there's been the smelliest route we've walked so far as well, a constant smell of either manure or bathrooms or something like hanging in the air, distinctly agricultural. So it's been one of those sort of days where, “meh”, but I mean. There are still funny little things that we saw.
So, the first coffee shop was really nice. And there was a lady out walking her goat rather than her dog. The goat was literally like a dog. It was like sniffing things would come when she called. It's just hanging out with her. It was so cute. So I've never seen that before. Then the coffee cart type thing set up under the trees was really nice as well. So, it started off really well with that stop to be fair. And there were a few kind of towns along the way, but most of them didn't really have much by in the way of services.
And we were also having like a face off with a combine harvester or something where it was literally coming down the path towards us, taking up the entire path and then probably a meter or so on either side as well because it's so wide. So it's kind of those things, I really hope they're looking at us and I was like getting ready to dive out of the way or whatever. But we had to really veer off into the field to get out of its way. I don't know, it's like it's quite weird feeling, seeing like that huge thing coming towards us at pace. I think they're probably quite used to people walking down there, though. I'm sure they seem pretty aware. The guy gave us a way to say thanks for moving out of the way. Yeah, but still, it's a bit like, what if he doesn't see us – death by combine harvester?
But yeah, it was like not too long. Weather is much nicer today. It was still only about 25 when we arrived here. Yeah, I don't know if you'll be able to hear, but there's like such a nice breeze coming over. We also stayed for our free breakfast at parador and felt so unwell after it, so we like got off to a bit of a rocky start, plus your ankle, plus all the smells and stuff. So luckily it's been 100% saved by this excellent stop in the afternoon. Yeah, we're hoping for proper breakfast and some eggs or something. But it was very much a continental breakfast with no one there. Yeah, it was very average, unfortunately. I think we've learned that we don't eat breakfast before you go. You walk and then you stop along the way because it's like a lead like ball in your stomach when you're setting off instead of full of energy. So the days when we've had just like a banana or something in the morning have been much better. There's usually a town around 5 to 7 kilometres kind of thing. And then you've got yourself going a little bit. It's nice to stop for coffee and a bite of something light. Yeah, definitely skip breakfast for any future stops for sure.
Yeah, and my ankle was a pain in the arse today. Seemed to have just sprained it a little bit or overstressed that, I don't know, but the KT tape has done a pretty good job. Certainly made a lot better, but I'm still limping my way out of town this morning. But I definitely recommend bringing some decent strength painkillers with you as well in case you do need them, in case you just need to keep on going through a day. Thankfully, we had some Ibuprofen and some stronger painkillers with us, I was able to take something at our first stop this morning. Which took the edge off things just a little bit, and everything got loosened up a little bit after walking for a while, so it actually feels better this evening than it did this morning. Hopefully, a good night's sleep as well. We'll help it just get a little bit better again. Yeah, I hope so too. And we'll kind of monitor it.
Well we only really had two major thoughts today. And the first I think we probably should have taken a rest day already. The fact that we're now getting like a bit of wear and tear, I think means that you probably need to take care of yourself a little bit along the way. So I think 12 days is too long. Today was the first day or I was a bit like, “Ohh, it's starting to be a little bit of a grind,” but I don't want it to ever feel that way because we're literally like paying to be here. I think that was just walking along the highways and stuff as well. But this wasn't like the rolling fields where you kind of just buried in your own thoughts. It's where you're continually disrupted like cars, traffic. And, you know, you counted up how far we've walked, right? We've walked a really long way. Yeah, 241 kilometers so far. So, 241 kilometers in, in 10 days, it's like pretty without a single break is a long way to go.
I think if I was doing it again, I'd try and take a rest day at Logrono, which was what, three days ago? So you're getting a rest day a week because I think you probably actually need that just for your own body recovery. Yeah, it's a nice town as well, Logrono. Nice range of restaurants and sold buildings and things about the right length of time in terms of you've already been walking for a week. We're still seeing the monk every day and there are others that we're seeing walking every day. But actually, the monk is the only person who from the very first day who we've seen. And, he's probably a bit more masochistic than. I mean, we're pretty masochistic. He's probably a bit more than we are. He's obviously up really early, and to me, that's the ultimate form of masochism. Yeah, exactly. Alarms are like torture in the morning.
The alarms are getting harder. It's annoying, actually, because we only had a very brief stint in London, with the summer weather, it's light really early. And with the jet lag, that's not so bad because we're getting up at like 6:00 o'clock every morning, just naturally waking up with the jet lag. The sun's already up, so you don't feel like you're waking up super early unlike normally when we come in winter. So that's cool. We just keep getting up at 6:00 and walk every day and all just feel like the right time to stay on as long as we keep our jet lag and stay on this time zone. It didn't last though. So I think having you know, the extra rest days and you actually get a bit more rest on those days as well. Two more days, yeah, no, no, for sure. And I'm fine. Funnily enough, the person who's like always broken and injuring themselves at home. I'm never usually ill on holiday ever. So I seem to be doing OK, but I still think that it makes sense to have a break a bit sooner than I wouldn't recommend to anyone – walk 12 days before taking a break. I would say take a break sooner than this. I don't think my ankle is just because of the number of days we walk. I think it's either walking in a slightly odd way because the one blister that's painful and that kind of like trying to like, take weight off your toes because it's like underneath your toes so you can like holding your toes up while you walk. If I just lift my toes up, then that's where I can feel it pulling on my ankle, or it’s from overextending a little bit on one of the downhills, I think. Which has just stretched things a little bit further than normal yeah. But I guess you'll minimize those sorts of things by taking a bit more, taking the breaks to then just let your body recover.
Yeah this is kind of the problem with having kind of pre booked our accommodation and stuff as well is we don't really have the option to just not walk one day and shift everything back a day later, so we have to walk. Which is fine. It's good to know that we have our accommodation secure. We don't have to fight for beds in the albergues. We have a private room everywhere. I like that assurance knowing that we have our have our rooms booked but. It does lock you in a little bit, so I guess maybe if you're going to do that then maybe that's a good reason for also having more rest days because you can't easily take an extra day out to rest an injury or something. Without having to go and try to shuffle a whole bunch of reservations. And a lot of them are non changeable, nonrefundable things. I mean, we've made this decision and it's not the typical thing that people do on the Camino, but I think for us, just given we had like those specific things that we wanted to make sense for us. We wanted a private room with its own bathroom exactly at the end of each day. So, and to be fair, there's not that many. There's usually maybe one or two rooms like that and the rest is dorms, yeah and we didn't want to be competing for those spaces and as a result we've had some really quirky and the best rooms in the house because we're the ones that pre booked. So, you know, there are a lot of upsides, but there are downsides as well versus just going for it. Yeah, lack of flexibility, but that's OK though.
I think if you're a Pilgrim back in the day walking this route with your group, you had to walk in the group for safety against bandits and things, and you had shared food and cooking and all those kind of things being carried by everybody in the group. You also didn't really have the option of just stopping for a day without having to make everybody stop as well, so I think if you were doing the pilgrimage back then, then maybe you just have to walk a little bit slower and come in later than everybody else, but you've got to stay with your group. Maybe that's part of it as well. A little bit of mental and physical toughness just to get through when it's when it's a little bit difficult. Not everything's easy. And, you know, these are the sorts of challenges that will be become memories and good memories in the future of the Camino of overcoming these challenges. It's not meant to be easy. I mean, it's meant it's meant to be a difficult walk. When you're doing it end to end, like we are 901 kilometers through the Spanish summer over all kinds of terrain. It's not meant to be a walk in the park. And so far it has been largely pretty chill and pretty easy. It's been baking hot. We've had like the first day was insane elevation climb, but generally it's been pretty cruisy just walking without really having to think about it.
And I mean the other funny thing is like the days are starting to blur together a little bit. So when our day 10 and I was trying to remember like where we've been for the last 10 days and was, I was really struggling to list out all the places and remember what we've done and where we've been. But I guess that's also just real life, right? Like, who really remembers, vividly what you did 10 days ago? But at least now when I think back, I think of like some of the, funny things that happen or some of the stories or like some of the things that I felt and those sorts of elements will remain. And I guess that's what the overarching kind of memories will be.
Anyway, tomorrow’s a long day. And we're going even further than the guidebook recommends,. Yeah, but it's like a 32km. Yeah, I think it was already 30 kilometers and then we're actually stopping just past the recommended end of stage at the next town, which is another 2 1/2 kilometers. So yeah, about 32-33 tomorrow. And that's just because I think the town at the end of the stage was very small. It only had two albergues, but then the next time it's a tiny bit further along has eight or ten, I think. So it just seems to be a few more options, a little bit bigger. But I guess they didn't want to stretch the stage to be like a 33 kilometre stage. Particularly when the following day is quite is short. So I guess it's just trying to balance that all out a little bit. By doing that, we have the one long day and then we have a 18-19 kilometer day into Burgos. After that, we have a rest day, which will be after just under two weeks of this. And just under 300 kilometers.
But then we have them slightly more frequently I think. It gets better from here because then I think we've got like a week and then we got a rest day in Leon, and then we've got like another week and then we've got a rest day again. And then when we actually get to Santiago, we've got three days in Santiago, because last time we walked from Portugal up to Santiago, we got to Santiago, rushed around like went to Mass, saw the church, saw the some of the historical things, got our Compostella, crashed, got up and left. So we didn't really give ourselves any time to look around Santiago, which is a nicer, slightly bigger town. Given we're doing the whole way this time. We should at that point, which is a traditional kind of endpoint for a lot of people…
You say that but you actually mis-booked the dates! But we've booked it as a rest day with two days and I mis-booked the day by one because the browser remembered something that. From the last booking or something. And then I tried to contact Booking and they say like no, we can't change it. Contact the hotel and you contact the hotel and they say no, we can't change it, contact Booking and you sit there going like well… Yeah, it was like a blessing in disguise, basically, because hindsight is a good idea because we've got so few kind of like single rest days. I think having that slightly longer period off your feet to chill out. And we booked a nice hotel as well. So what was the quote? “Blessing in the skies” when they miss-say, “blessing in disguise”. Friends or Simpsons or something. I don't know. It's like when you mispronounce famous quotes.
Ah, well, I'm looking forward to it to sleep now. Shall go and chill out. Yep, alright, let's wrap it up and. Go and have a nap?
OUTRO
Thanks everyone for listening.
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Buen Camino!
