Today it is thirty-four days since I started walking. On the Camino Frances five years ago this would have been the day I arrived at Santiago de Compostela but on this trip, with five hundred miles done, I still have half as many yet to do before I get to walk into that cathedral square this time round. I guess though that it is in some way fitting that this should be the day I start to head west towards that city.
This morning after two hours of walking I reached Granja de Moreruela and I left the Via de la Plata. That route continues north for another four days of walking until Astorga where it ends and there walkers can pick up the Camino Frances. Instead I am now following the Camino Sanabrés in a more westerly direction. I am told the Sanabrés is beautiful so this, and the opportunity it offers to walk some new parts of Spain, makes it preferable to connecting up with a route I have already done.
I had hoped that being off a route based on Roman road would be the end of those long, straight stretches of pebble strewn and dusty gravel tracks that stretch endlessly off into the distance and pound the feet. Sadly that was not the case and the first and last part of today’s Sanabrés route featured some such miles through a dry and empty landscape. But sandwiched between these was a beautiful walk along the edge of the rocky and steep sided valley of the river Esla. I crossed the river over the beautiful Quintos bridge - a narrow series of stone arches reaching across the water - and joined a rough track clinging to the valley's edge. It climbed through shrub to the valley top before continuing on flatter ground through bark woods and fields dotted with the occasional ruin of an old stone shelter. By lunchtime I had reached the tiny village of Faramontanos de Tábara where a few of its buildings seemed to be destined for the same fate as those shelters and where I had originally hoped to spend the night. Instead I found an open bar, had their last slice of tortilla and continued the last five miles to Tábara in the heat of the afternoon, and where I am once again in a ‘traditional' albergue. On this occasion however I managed to get the last of eighteen beds so it’s a bit busier than last night.
The communal dinner was mostly French and Germans, but Italy and Poland were also represented. It was hearty and nourishing but not as good as yesterday’s. But like yesterday wine and digestifs were included and by 9pm people were drifting towards their beds.
Once again my plans for tomorrow have been upset by the closure of the albergue at my intended destination. Instead of nine miles and a good rest I might have to do fourteen, although even that would not be too bad. Except the albergue at that village has only twelve beds and I expect most of the eighteen people here will have it in their sights. I don’t want to be setting off early in a race to get a bed so it might end up as yet another day of over twenty miles for me, a distance I know I can do when I need to but which I am now trying to get a break from.
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