Santo Domingo De Calzada to Belorado

Santo Domingo De Calzada to Belorado – Video

A strange old day.  We started off at about 8.15 and headed out of Santo Domingo on the way to Belorado.  We walked past the Cathedral and peeked into the Parador – a chain of luxurious hotels that have generally been “built into” amazing old buildings.  We headed out of town and spent some time adjusting wet weather gear and in my case, fiddling with my newly purchased boots.  One of the strongest pieces of advice before coming on the Camino is to wear your boots in – which I had done, but this was of  no use once I had discovered that they are not water proof.  Should have tested this before getting here, but no serious wet weather in Perth in the 6 month lead up and an expectation that we would be walking here in the heat. So it is going to be a process of breaking these new boots  in over the coming days, wearing them for a couple of hours and swapping back to my old faithfulls that now feel like a comfy pair of familiar slippers.

The walk was strange because we largely followed a freeway on paths which ran parallel and in the adjacent fields.  Neither rain nor mist, but something in between.  The milestones of approximately one third of the Camino done together with the passing out of one province and into another semi-autonomous province all occurred today.

We made it in good time and then set about finding somewhere for a beer after the walk followed by showers and dinner in a fantastic Albergue restaurant serving “peregrino menu” – three courses with wine included for 12 euro…..no complaints from ANYONE.  Met father and son from San Francisco, Miles and Greg and laughed when they told me they were friends of the man who owned the company that made the boots I had just bought…

The kilometres are ticking by and this is the 11th day of walking.  The routine is set, the group we will likely walk into Santiago with are pretty much now recognisable to us and we continue on.  We have another day of mid 20 km’s tomorrow followed by a burster of close to 30km  on Friday before we walk into Burgos and enjoy a day off….laundromat and feet up!