26. Medina del Campo

I am writing this from my bed in the youth hostel in Medina del Campo, another fairly large town on this plateau we are traversing on the way to Zamora. The hostel is pretty simple really, but compared to the back room in the sports stadium we were in last night it feels like a 5 star hotel. For a start, there is a shower in each shared room (I’m sharing with Keith). There are also sheets and towels and I am in a single bunk after two nights on the top bunk - luxuary.

It was a big stage today - approximately 35 kms, so after a breakfast of two bananas we were on the road early. We passed the old town of Arévalo and crossed the river before we started to get into open country.

Pretty soon we sighted our two Spanish companions who had started ahead of us.

We also came across a flock(?) of vultures, one of which I managed to photograph.

We caught up with Andreas and Louis in the next little town. So far, everyone I have met on this route has been 60+.

Geoff, this one’s for you. It’s one of the best weather vanes I’ve seen -  very Spanish!

The walk today has been through open plains of mostly grain crops.

There are still occasional fields of poppies which glow bright red against the other crops.

There are some similarities between this landscape the plains of La Mancha - now far behind me.

A couple of kilometres before one little town we bumped into this old guy walking along the path. He turned around and walked with us back into his village. He spoke in animated Spanish all the way and we picked up the occasional work. Despite the langauage difficulties, it was a nice connection. I tried to convince him to walk on to Santiago with us but he wouldn’t be in it - smart man!,

As the kilometres ground on, Keith felt increasingly tired, as did I. You can see an increasing determination in his stride - ‘I’m going to get this done!’ 

And so he did. And here we are - tired but pleased with a solid stage and a good days walking.

Buen Camino

Neil