Camino de Madrid. Day 11. May 3, 2019. Peñaflor de Honija to Medina Rioseco. 24 kms

I’m on the loo, but can not close the door,

So please be patient, just five minutes more.

That’s why I’m singing, more or less in tune

And I’ll be out of here, very soon

(to the tune of Abide with Me)

It was a very comfortable albergue: three rooms with four bunks each, a heater in each room, and a wifi that didn’t work. Only one bathroom, with a toilet and shower. Bit of a problem here: the bathroom door wouldn’t close; in fact, it wouldn’t even stay ajar, but would swing wide open. Not really a problem with just three of us, Rach and I and Albert the Dutchman. We had to sing on the loo to let the others know it was occupied, but with a dozen people and one bathroom with an open door, that would be difficult.

Rach and I parted company this morning: she to walk back to Simancas to catch a bus into Valladolid for a four o’clock train to Madrid. It was a sad farewell: I could not have asked for better company.

I walked out of the the town down a long ramp, circled round a little, then doubled back for a long climb out of the hollow.

Back on the meseta, I walked long the edge of a field of wind turbines, all of them turning lazily except two together who were stubbornly still. They looked oddly petulant. Perhaps the others were stealing their wind. 

After five kilometres, I passed through a wood, by a pig farm, then back onto the fields. And then, at ten, I walked into Castromonte, past a magnificent nineteen thirties school which had become the albergue, and into the bar for my first coffee. Albert the Dutchman arrived while I was there.

As I left Castromonte a sign on the highway indicated that my destination was only 13 km away but the arrows led me off the highway. What a pleasant diversion beside a brook! But then back to the meseta.

As I walked on I thought about the discussions Rach and I had enjoyed along the way. Rich is a vegan, for ethical reasons, mainly. She doesn’t believe in the exploitation of animals, and she understands their environmental impact through their production of toxic gases and the growing of crops for their food. Stop eating animals and save the planet!

She is right, of course. If the land on either side of me and elsewhere in the world that is given over to the production of animal food were planted instead with trees, then we would reduce the production of methane and carbon dioxide enough to reverse climate change.

But what to do about all the people that would no longer have a livelihood? People that don’t have a meaningful purpose in life don’t care about saving the planet. Jobs, jobs, jobs! It really is the most important thing.

As I pondered upon this, a fellow driving a tractor approached, slowed down, and opened his door to speak to me. He must have noticed me grunting and sweating under my weary load and wanted to encourage me.

“Only two kilometres to Valverde de Campos,”, he said, “where there’s a bar, and seven kilometres to Medina de Rioseco, where there’s an albergue.” He was a happy fellow. But take away his livelihood, and he might drive his tractor at me.

Or as a disgruntled Brexiter put it recently, “I may have voted for disaster, but at least those bastards in London are going down with me.”

I walked into Valverde de Campos and ate my lunch on a bench outside the church. And then it was an easy five kilometres to Medina Rioseco where I found a bed at the Albergue Convente de Sara Clara.