Day 24 - Camping to Baños de Montemayor (14 miles)

At 3am I wake and look up at a star emblazoned sky. There is no moon yet but it is still light enough to see. For a while I have been thinking about walking a section of the Camino at night; it would make for a different experience. And at this moment it just feels the right thing to do.

I am grateful now that I am walking along a road, it makes for easy going and I can see well enough in shades of grey to distinguish any changes in its surface, any places where care underfoot may be required. The darkness of trees and bushes hems me in from each side - I have no sense of what is beyond - but ahead, above the dark horizon, the sky is alive with light. I can easily pick out the major constellations as brighter stars but there are countless other specks filling the spaces in between. Occasionally the streak of a shooting star leaves its short-lived trail across the sky but otherwise I move forward within my own limited world below an apparently unmoving sparkling chandelier across the heavens.

I enjoy this peace for an hour but it can not last of course. I know my route takes me below a motorway and now, even at this hour and at this distance, I hear it and catch glimpses of lights, intrusions on my private encounter with nature. Another hour and I am walking through the silent streets of Aldeanueva del Camino and the night sky is swept away by its streetlights. But after I have passed through this interruption to my darkness and isolation it is seven more miles of empty road with the moon making a belated appearance above the side of the valley I am now ascending. In reality though, night is now losing her grip over the heavens; the sky is lightening and the blanket of stars is significantly reduced.

By eight o'clock my day is done. I wander the quiet, narrow streets of Baños de Montemayor, the small and steep-laned village at the head of the valley, looking for somewhere to breakfast. I find myself a very comfortable private albergue. And then I have no plans. At this moment that is something my mind and body are grateful for.