Distance: 21.0km (419.3km).
Altitude (start / end / highest): 885m / 860m / 885m.
Weather: Hot.
The shout of joy that I stifled yesterday, should have been changed to a scream of anger. Sleeping in a room with only four other pilgrims should have increased the changes of a night without snoring, but I ended up drawing the short straw. When the morning arrived, I had barely slept a minute. Next to me, I had one of the specimen of snorers that sounds as if he is choking, sporadically. When I finally felt my eyelids getting heavier and heavier and the sleep creep into my eyes, the death throes next to begun again.
In the early hours of the day, approaching Moratinos, the round and grassy knolls contains wine cellars.
In the end, I gave up and left the room, thinking of lying down at the couch in the ground floor. There was Eric, the piano player from Granon, sleeping. He had been faster out than me, the smart guy. Back to my bed. When the usual early birds (those who I always wonder if are getting anything at all out of the Camino) began rummaging around in the room with their headlamps on at three o'clock in the night, I was completely indifferent this time. Amusingly enough, you have to be early to bed down here, but there are no rules putting limitations on how early you can wake up, that would have been nice.
Sunrise from the top of a wine cellar in Moratinos.
So I began the day by feeling like the others, stumbling around in a daze. Not due to feet with blisters that hurts, but of a total lack of sleep. Well, I am probably not alone about it. Torsten had been luckier; it was quieter in his room. We started walking without having eaten breakfast; instead we followed the Camino in the darkness that slowly became brighter. Until we came to Moratinos, where a newly opened hotel provided us with our first meal of the day.
In the small village of Moratinos, looking back towards Terradillos de Los Templarios and the rest of the meseta.
After the initial wonderful days on the meseta, the last days has started to become quite similar. A major cause of this is probably that the landscape has flattened out and with that providing less variation along the route, but I still enjoy myself pretty well on the meseta. This day has been like floating through the dry scenery, almost as in a state of contemplative sleepwalking.
Ermita Virgen del Puente with the bridge crossing the river Valderaduey.
Depending on how you end up walking the Camino, Sahagun is probably the most popular stopover on this section. To us however, the town became caught in the middle, we arrived too early to feel satisfied with the walk. For those who choose to stop in Sahagun and spend the night there, the town will have enough attractions to look at. Torsten and I ate lunch, did some small errands and then continued further.
In Sahagun, Arco San Benito that is almost all that is left of the old abbey.
The walk was pleasant enough before Sahagun, afterwards it was just dry and monotonous. Even though we passed an oasis of some sort where the Caminos crosses the rio Cea on a Roman bridge. There are some of these longer stretches of road, pilgrim autopistas.
A cross outside Sahagun where the Camino crosses the river Cea.
Bercianos del Real Camino is probably living almost entirely on the pilgrims that are walking through and spending the night in the village. There are about 200 persons living in the village. The first we noticed was the absence of children and young people. The albergue is donativo and nice. Water already stood ready at the table for us when we enlisted and was allocated a bed. The heat outside made the laundry dry fast.
Virgen del Perales outside Bercianos del Real Camino.
In the village, you find the ruins of a church, only the entrance is left standing. You can go into the church and be just as outside as you were before you went in. You meet few people in the streets. Alessandra and Martina arrived when Torsten and I was about to take our new favourite refreshment on the walk, cerveza con limon. In the heat, the mix of beer and lemon soda is incredibly refreshing.
The albergue in Bercianos del Real Camino, an ochre coloured brick building.
Donativo means a communal dinner and gathering in the albergue. I am not overly excited about standing in front of a crowd, so when it turns out that there is a tradition here that the pilgrims sing a song from their home country for the other pilgrims, I am not all that enthusiastic. Not that I can sing either. I ended up singing 'bæ bæ lille lam' for them, a Norwegian song for children (kind of related to 'bah bah black sheep'), the only song I knew the lyrics of on the fly. My cheeks were faintly blushing while singing. However, the most curious thing about the albergue was that there was an Iranian girl there.
The ruins of a church in Bercianos del Real Camino, only the entrance door is left standing.
I really enjoy myself together with Torsten, Alessandra and Martina, they are really great people. We walk at different speed on the Camino, but are gathering in the evenings. The evening in Bercianos del Real Camino was the best part of this day on my walk towards Santiago de Compostela, I am over halfway now. In the end, the Camino turned out to be quite different from what I had thought it would be. I had brought with me a book to read in the afternoon and evenings, I have barely had time to read it. Today, I decided that The Hand Of Fatima by Ildefonso Falcones will get to prolong its stay at the albergue in Bercianos del Real Camino, I leave it behind so that any pilgrims coming later can read it if they want to.
Dinner in the albergue. Alessandra and Torsten waving to the photographer, Martina with her head turned around towards the photographer.
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