Day 16: Fromista to Carrion de Los Condes

Day 16: June 20, Fromista to Carrion de Los Condes

Numbers: 11.90 miles per Garmin GPS. See detail here. 30,991 steps, 21 floors, and 246 active minutes per Fitbit.

Dave voice:

Google Translate says the name of this town is Carrion of the Earls, which makes as much sense as naming any town "carrion." Perhaps "decomposing flesh" was already taken. We arrive here via a "senda,"a path built by the state beside the highway – also built by the state. Our guide book’s author, an assertively spiritual guy, finds the senda "soulless," and recommends an alternative route along a tree-covered path near a river a short distance away. This was evidently built by the Keebler Elves and is the epitome of where spiritual people ought to be. As a non-spiritual person, all I can think is that I spend most of my Camino day watching my footing so I don’t trip and break any of my many non-spiritual bones. Thoughts of the eternal have to wait until immediate challenges are faced. Perhaps this is how spiritual persons differ from the likes of me; they are more sure-footed.

As for the soulless senda, it’s a decent, but not perfect, path adjacent to a two lane highway which, owing to this being a Saturday morning, is lightly trafficked and unlikely to disturb anyone’s deep thoughts. Since the limits of my deep thoughts are: 1) Don’t fall over, at least until the rib injury from the previous fall is gone, and 2) When will there be an open coffee place in on of these dinky little Spanish villages? So, maybe I’m a little thin on the spiritual stuff.

We’re closing in on the halfway point of our trek and doing what a lot of pilgrims do: going to "farmacias" looking for ways to bandage our defective toes. The new approach – since basic bandaids haven’t been helpful – is toe condoms. These seem promising, but don’t always stay in place if the footing is irregular. This is mostly why we chose the soulless, but potentially flatter and more forgiving senda over the iffier river-side pathway.

Tomorrow looks flat, but includes some Roman-built stretches and we’ve seen enough Roman-built road before to know that a) We don’t enjoy it much, and b) Romans were tough monkeys. Either that or they didn’t have clear idea of the word "flat." Fortunately for our souls, we won’t be on senda.

Weather has gradually warmed since the rainy days though mornings are still cool. Two days ago, our Norski pal said rain was coming again; now she says it’s going to get even warmer. So, maybe one of these will occur.

One ongoing thing on the Camino is dealing with a new hotel each night. These are often on the Camino itself (often the Main Street of a village) and often near the big church (hint: not Lutheran) and so, are in the heart of the town where kids play, townspeople walk and argue, and, to our surprise, folks stay up late on Saturday nights. (Okay, the bathroom is in a different location each time and, for those of us who have perfected the technique of meandering into the bathroom in the middle of the night without actually waking up, this is a challenge.)

Unlike American hotels, where the goal is to offer a bed as large as the room, here we often have two twin beds. Sometimes, they’re pushed together as if two twins (each with it’s own bedding) equals a queen or a king. Tain’t so. For those of us fortunate enough to be married to Scout, waking to discover that she’s in another bed is not a happy moment.

All but one of our rooms has had a flat screen TV, usually a very little one. Bidets about half the time. Toilet paper which could double as copier paper. And little packets of "bath gel," a horrible product that’s even worse when one has to get it from a wall dispenser. If these remote towns ever hope to grow into gleaming metropolitan hubs, they better get those little, individually-wrapped bars of soap for their hotels. Ones worth stealing. No traveller ever swiped a Squeez-Pak of bath gel from a hotel.

Signs on the Senda

More Camino signs

Welcome to Carrion...

View on Senda

If you notice, the soulless Senda is similar to other terrain, but instead of wheat on each side, there's a quiet road on one side. In our opinion, not bad.....and...sure footing!

Break in a village on The Way with modern pc in background :-)

Cig machine...when did you last see one of these?!!

Carrion Church- nice/old, yet similar to others

When did you last have a beautiful hotel with a personal welcome note for $48?

A final note: pilgrims come in all sizes, ages, countries. And, for some reason, some even carry their stuff in plastic bags. Ouch!

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