2. Oncina de la Valdoncina to Hospital de Órigo. 25 kms

In the east the rosy dawn,

And in the sky above

Wisps of cloud, tinged with pink,

Clear and crisp and pure.

I enjoyed some sleep last night, but awoke at 5:15 and then set out just before dawn. Up a steady rise and then on to the plain, lonely and beautiful.

Harvested hay fields, scrubby land with occasional majestic oaks, and cultivated fields.

After ten kilometres, I stopped for coffee at Villar de Mazarife, and then began a long dull trudge through dried-up corn, crossed over a canal, and then continued on an even duller trudge through more dried-up corn. This was the very worst of vistas, the road stretching out ahead in a long line forever. No bend, no surprise, just more of the same. However, one of us, Spotty Dog the Dalmatian, was running free, bounding this way and that, unencumbered by his saddle pack. You may just spot him in the photo above.

Pilgrims like to write on the El Camino de Santiago road signs that adorn the highway. On just one sign, for example, these ranged from the religious (“At peace with the Lord Jesus Christ”), to the spiritual (“Loving yourself is the beginning of love”), to the personal (“We are back. G and V”), to the practical (“I need to pee”). No obscenity or blasphemy. I remember a quotation (“I am the way, the truth, and the light”) on the path into Santiago that anywhere else would have provoked a blasphemous rejoinder. But some one had scribbled: “Not the only way.”

Eventually, five kilometres further than I thought, I arrived at Hospital de Órigo,
where I’m the only person in a four-bed room. Private luxury! Accommodation, by all accounts, is going to prove a problem later on. Here, I’m on a variant, but tomorrow I join the main stream. I will probably book ahead, something I’ve never done before on the Camino.

At Oncina de La Valdoncina yesterday, I noticed on a bell tower In the distance, the largest stork’s nest I have ever seen. As I approached, what I thought was the stork turned out to be a cross. I guess the inhabitant was out delivering babies.