Episode Transcript
DAY 9 MORNING BEFORE WALKING
Friday, Day 9, leaving Najera and going to Santo Domingo. Only 20ish kilometers today it's a bit shorter which is nice. Some clouds in the sky. Hopefully it stays a little bit cooler, because last night was hot and loud and unpleasant. Yeah, I'm tired, so hopefully we'll find coffee soon and then just enjoy the walk. Hopefully have a better stop in the next place. It's definitely one of the loudest rooms that we've had, the actual room is clean and comfortable and fine. There's so much noise from other rooms above and next door and on the street and it was absolutely ridiculous amount of noise all night. So we have to have everything closed and then it's hot, so then it was really hot. Oh, and also, if you ever do stay there, don't stay on the 1st floor because there's a streetlight off the balcony so you can't sleep. Go up to the second floor instead.
DAY 9 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 9. And we are walking from Najera to Santo Domingo de la Cazada. Or just Santo Domingo, as we shall call it from here out. Yeah, it's a bit of a mouthful. I think this was a pretty easy day. Guidebook says 20.9 kilometers. We did just over 21km. So pretty much spot on. It rates it a one out of three difficulty and in our scale up to 10, we'd probably give it like a three out of 10. It wasn't a difficult day. It was a nice day. A lot of interesting things to see and a great end stop. It does say it takes 5 to 6 hours in the guidebook, but it only took us 3 h 45m. Less than four hours walking.
And to quote the guidebook: “Wander vineyard vistas, pass the 15th century stone boundary marker and find out why live chickens dwell in Santo Domingo's cathedral.” I don't remember the marker. I guess to go through the day a little bit, I mean it's mostly on nice farm tracks past vineyards and wheat fields. Pretty level as well. No big hills or craziness today.
And apparently at six kilometers, you would then go past this 15th century ‘Columna Justicia’, a stone boundary marker. But as you say, I don't recall seeing that. The column of justice, I guess. I guess being like a legal boundary marker or something, that kind of makes sense. I don't know what a boundary marker is. Well, we have them all around our property here. They just mark out where the edge of your property is compared to the next property. This is where you would normally put fences if you had fences. But you look at these fields and things, there's no fences around things. Well, there's a 500 year old fence post. Yeah, pretty much. That we didn't see.
And you then walk through Ciruena, which is this weird ghost town. Which is like a golf course with a town as an afterthought almost in the middle of nowhere. It's literally in the middle of nowhere. Because you're walking through these fields. Nothing. Nothing, nothing. And then you see this high density town that was just obviously built at the height of greed. A ll these row houses with common walls and things on tiny little blocks of land just in the middle of nothing. There's obviously someone trying to cram as many houses as they can onto the amount of land that they've got and sell them all. And we'll talk about this more later into some of what it felt like to walk through it. Pretty unpleasant.
But then it has this incredibly scenic golf course, which loads of locals were using. So I guess they just drive from wherever to get to the golf course. A few of the houses were really well looked after with nice gardens and things like that. But a lot of it just seemed like abandoned. Or neglected, I guess. Or maybe just empty. It's almost like it didn't finish being built. It's funny because when you think of ghost towns, you often think of China and places like that. So it's really weird to walk through one in a Western country. And I guess the trap is if a lot of people bought into this at the peak of the property market and prices when things were being developed everywhere, you've probably got trapped in it where you've got a mortgage that you can't get out of now because your property is worth less than your mortgage. It's pretty messed up.
Then you head on to Santo Domingo. So there's actually not that many stops today. It was really this ghost town and then the main town, Santo Domingo. But luckily, because it was a short walk anyway, it didn't matter too much. Well, we should say the golf course was very nice, except the Pilgrim seating, which was a little bit limited. You don't want dirty pilgrims in your nice golf course. But the golf course looked lovely. They should allow a session or something when you pass through. I feel like they put nice facilities there in a nice location for a stop. I feel like they're missing a trick a little bit there to get the most out of the pilgrims and give them a great experience. And you literally have 10s to hundreds of people coming through that could be spending money there.
Once we went out of this town, we're back through the wheat fields again. And they're actually burning off the wheat fields. So I guess at the end, after they've harvested everything, they burn all the stalks. So they then get plowed back into the ground and used as fertilizer, or enrichment. But it's crazy because you have these golden fields and then you've got black fields where it's been burned. It's really dramatic contrast and everything smells like smoke. But yeah, I mean, just incredible to see, and we'll put obviously all of those pictures up on our blog as well.
Then we drop into Santo Domingo, which was lovely. Yeah, it's a nice little town. We've walked past quite a few little bars and restaurants and things that look really pleasant. So we went straight to the Parador and didn't leave. I'd highly recommend it. It was a really old building, some sort of converted palace. It was a lovely old building, like on the square opposite the church right in the middle of town. Yeah, they had this nice seating just out the front in the square. So we just sat out there most of the time. Got some tasty treats. Yeah, lots of nice bakeries or Pasticcerias. I'd say bakeries, because that's easier. Yeah. And apparently there, well, we ate these things called Ajocaritos or Little Hanged Men, a popular local snack. Sweet almond cream pastry shaped like a shell. So basically, shell shaped pastry is covered in almonds stuffed with cream. Yeah, they're good. And then sometimes dipped in chocolate and various other things because we went through the bakery and went like one of those and those and those and those and those and those. Tried everything. Yeah, it was pretty good.
And the final thing, so you'll hear later, the town is really famous for this particular church, which has live chickens in it. And while we're talking, we were both too tired to go. And then I talked myself into going into it. So after we finished chatting later, I went to have a look around and it was really wacky. There are literally cages with chickens in them, with all of this sort of tiling around and this really funny mosaic of a guy, jumping up in shock with a chicken on the plate in front of him. And it's because of a little story, which I'm going to butcher and try and tell you very, very succinctly. Is it a parable, perhaps? May well be, when you hear what the actual content is.
So apparently Santa Domingo is named after Saint Dominic, who developed sections of the Camino in the area in the 11th century, including building bridges and clearing the path. The main legend / parable associated is the Hanged Innocent, where a German family were on a pilgrimage to Santiago, stayed with a farmer's family in the town. The Farmer's Daughter tried to seduce the German son, but as a pious Pilgrim, he refused her. He totally wasn't into it. Apparently. And for revenge she had some silver items in his backpack, accused him of theft. He was found guilty and hanged. His parents kept going to Santiago, but came back to see his body on the return journey. They were delighted to find him still alive, hanging in the noose, claiming that the Saint held him up so he did not die. They demanded the boy be cut down since he was clearly innocent. The magistrate shouted, “He is no more alive than this roasted chicken I'm about to eat”. The chicken stood up on its plate, miraculously brought back to life, feathers and all, and crowed. Yeah, and the chicken also didn't want to go out with the farmer's daughter. Apparently - this poor farmer's daughter, a comely woman. I feel like this could have been the basis of the first teen movie ever. Yeah, it was 90s teen movies in whatever century this was. I know what a hilarious story. And yeah, they now have chickens in the cathedral or the church. And then she took off her glasses. And then he did want to go out with her after all. Maybe, even the chicken. So anyway, entertaining nonetheless. Hence the live chickens.
What else have we got today? Well, I guess one of the questions we had from people who are listening is how do you pay for things? Do you need to have cash? Can you use cards everywhere? I know day-to-day for us we're used to just like tapping cards everywhere. These days I barely ever carry cash anymore. But the Camino is a little bit different. Most places you need to have cash. So you definitely want to take some cash with you and plan a bit ahead because ATM's are not so common either except in the big cities. So I mean, obviously, as we said before, the actual cost of things day-to-day is relatively low. It's like a few Euros here or a few Euros there. Maybe 15-20 for your dinner, maybe another 10/15/20 during the day if you're splashing out on snacks and things. So you probably need, I don't know, 300 a week or something like that. I guess you just plan around the major cities because the bigger towns will all have like banks and ATM and facilities to get cash. The little towns won’t.
So definitely better to have too much than too little because I think there were occasionally times when we started to run out like, “Oh no, may not be able to eat.” We got quite low at one It's possibly going into Leon. I think we're like very low on cash because we'd had like lots of stops in the small towns and we'd had the we'd had dinner and things like that every night as well because there wasn't really anywhere to buy things in self cater. So we'd run a little bit lower than what we thought we were and we just weren't paying attention to it. Supermarkets and stuff you can pretty much tap, I think from what I remember. So most supermarkets and convenience store kind of things will have cards where they exist. But like little corner shops and the cafes and things like that. They're just all cash. Yeah. So I guess it's just if you've been in a big city like us, it can be a real shock and you just may not be thinking about it.
Luckily, we were gifted a very cute drink money pouch, like a little cash pouch. So we filled that with cash and then used it to purchase many drinks along the way. A little pouch or something like that is quite handy. You can keen all the change in it as well because you will just end up with like fistfuls of change. And then you have to start actively using the change to like, buy your drinks and coffees and things like that to try and clear it out. Yeah, yeah, totally. But I felt like the backpacks we had required good as well because the belt that wraps around your waist, which had two little pouches in it as well. So just keeping our change and stuff in there, it was always easily accessible. And I guess you always want to distribute. I mean, as we said, even in the last episode, just how safe the Camino feels. But obviously you just need to be a bit careful with cash. To avoid opportunistic theft. But broadly, it's not an issue ever. Yeah. But we had, we had our day-to-day kind of cash just in the belt pouch on the backpack and that was never really an issue. So just be aware and do take cash.
And the final thing is we're going to do a little shout out because someone very close to us did their first Camino. A short one-week Portuguese Camino, the same that we've talked about before and we'll actually do a full episode on what a mini Camino looks like. And yes, my sister Lucinda, who smashed it. She did really well. We actually inspired someone to go and walk the Camino. Yes, one person. But where's our money? I don't understand. You’re meant have to be rich now making a podcast. Our commission I'm sure is coming through shortly from her, but yeah, basically she had a good time we're going to see her later in the year in Amsterdam. So we'll probably do a little interview session about get her thoughts on the short Portuguese Camino from someone who is new to it. So yeah, if anyone else is undertaking their first Camino, let us know. Love to wish you along. And it is an epic journey. Even the short one’s an epic journey. Yeah, I remember when we did the end of the Portuguese Camino and loved it. And at the end all I wanted to do was go and walk the full French Camino. And it took us a couple of years to get back there and do that. But we did.
So yeah, on the back of that. Shall we see how we got on? Yep. Let's go and see what happened on the way to Santo Domingo.
DAY 8 AFTERNOON AFTER WALKING
All right. Afternoon of Day Nine we're in Santo Domingo. Looking at the cathedral, which apparently has live chickens in it. We're too tired to go in – they are expensive live chickens. Yeah, it has like a relatively high price tag to go inside with a big museum and stuff. Something. If I had more energy, I would do it. I'm just enjoying sitting here. Maybe I'll get more energy after this and pop inside. It's nice that they made an exhibition, but I don't think I'm €5 enthused enough to see it. Maybe I'm changing my mind while we sit here. I might stick my head in after quickly while you finish your coffee. Well, if you do that and I stay here and drink coffee, then we get to see it for half price. What so I’ll surreptitiously have a video chat running so that you can see it inside for free and then I'll get like kicked out for spying or learning for free.
We're staying at the Parador, which I think in The Way they quote is like a form of excess that no Pilgrim should undertake. But I couldn't imagine anything else – says all the pilgrims who can't afford to stay in the parador. Yeah, exactly. And I mean, particularly after last night where, we slept really badly, we were really dehydrated, we didn't eat enough, which is basically all the essential ingredients that you need to actually walk 20 plus kilometres a day. I think we needed today just to kind of recuperate a little bit. Obviously that's like a very big difference between like $15 a night for the albergue and the 100 plus Euros a night for the Parador. But I mean, I'm happy with that.
My main thought today was you really, really appreciate aircon and hot showers and clean quiet rooms after doing this. You can take for granted a little bit so when we are in these nice rooms, y even more than we ever were before when we – you know, we stay in nice hotels all over the place. But you really feel it. And it feels so special when you go into a room that's cool and pleasant. But also we've really benefited from the weather turning a bit today. So it's been what was the, what temperature 24? Yes, 24 degrees at the moment. I think it was like a top of 27 or something today. Yeah, but it was cool this morning when we left and really the whole day it's never too hot at all. It’s the first day it's been like that. So I think it was definitely the heat wave breaking and all of a sudden it was clouds today in the morning looked like it may even rain a little bit, but that burned off. And then the sun came out, we had a nice cool breeze. Most of the way. I was so tired this morning. Like the first 5 kilometres were quite painful until we got to our first coffee stop and then I felt so much better after our Cortado. One of us was lagging. I was really slow this morning. I felt so shattered.
It's been another interesting day in terms of terrain. They're red rock hill things that reminded us of literally the red rocks in Denver, like the Red Rock Theater and the the park there. Like the big Red cliffs coming out. Reminds me of like makes me think of like old Western movies and things that are set in the US with the just the big red cliffs behind the town, particularly with the sun on it this morning. Yeah, that was really pleasant. And then in the afternoon we saw black smouldering fields, I guess, where they've been doing the slash and burn. What's the term? Fertilizing, enriching. Something like enriching the soil, so it's interesting to see that though. I mean we… Ohh hold on.
We seem to have some bad timing with church bells, though. We've had that a couple of times. I guess we tend to sit down about 8 o'clock to do this each evening. But I was gonna say that, you know, we're used to like some slashing and burning, but the worst kind of it when we were in Singapore and the so-called haze or smog from Indonesia would come over from the slash and burn that they would do there. Seemed like quite controlled, but I guess it's still probably terrible for the environment.
We passed the time a little bit today by playing i-spy very unsuccessfully on my part. After coming up with the only thing we could possibly see was wheat. So mine was W you guessed wheat correctly. Then yours was C. And then I was like, looking around – concrete, cava, cake… Yeah, don't know where you were seeing cake, but it would have actually been nice. Then you gave me a hint. I gave you every letter of the word… COUD. Yeah, I couldn't guess. Clouds. You see how tired I was? I literally couldn't guess the thing that I haven't seen it, but were commenting on all morning? Yeah, I was like, are they like, is it like ahead of us? Behind us? You're like, it's everywhere. So I have no idea. Yeah, so that was unsuccessful. I think we gave up after that was too hard.
It was a pretty easy walk today, like much more pleasant. Yeah, there was a very strange stop along the way, a ghost town with a huge golf course, and they obviously tried to capitalize just before the GFC, the financial crisis in 2008, I was working at the Foreign Office at the time. Don't question the Economist about when the financial crises are. What happened in 2011? They're probably other like dips and things. Maybe there was another recession of some kind. I was thinking of the floods in Brisbane, which were 2011.
But you could see that this town had been built like purely by like a developer trying to like make a quick buck. Well, they build a whole town kind of just in the middle of farmland. But these tiny terraced houses in high density housing in the countryside, literally the middle of like fields as far as the eye can see, it's like so cheeky. And they're basically all empty. It just feels inappropriate, like you don't need high density housing in the middle of the country.. Unless you're trying to get it. Maximum bucks for the land that you bought. And then you have this really posh golf course, which is really strange as well. They don't let pilgrims inside. There was seating inside in the cafe where you could sit. So there are quite a few people coming in and sitting in there. But yeah, when you walk up, there's just like a couple of plastic chairs underneath the vent from the kitchen. And it says pilgrims here. So I feel we probably could have done more to help economically support this town if they were a bit friendlier. The golf course is just in the right place as well because 15 kilometers into a 20 kilometer day, and there is nothing else. The last chance for drinks and things was at 5 kilometers. And they had a garden with seating and stuff at the end as well, which is also like, sorry, not for pilgrims. If they actually just opened it up to people, it probably be full of everyone stopping there for a drink or a snack. It feels like a missed opportunity when your town in the middle of nowhere is dying. It doesn't seem to have a lot going on. But the one thing it does have is a stream of pilgrims coming through every day.
Well, I think maybe while you have your last coffee, I might just go and see these chickens. Is there anything else today that we've missed out? No, I don't think so. It's fairly uneventful day. It was very eventful. It was like loads of really like random things that we saw today. Yeah, one of them wasn't clouds. Yeah, exactly.
And then tomorrow we have another easy-ish day, so that'll be good. We're going to get breakfast in the morning, then Belorado tomorrow. Back into the small hostels and things tomorrow. Yeah, that sounds good. Let's wrap it up.
OUTRO
Thanks everyone for listening.
We hope you've enjoyed Is This The Way and have taken away some inspiration and ideas about how you might approach the Camino. If you'd like to get in touch or find some more information about each episode, head over to our website: https://isthistheway.net.
Buen Camino!
