Day 15 – San Bol to Itero de la Vega

Today I have been walking for 2 weeks and 1 day and feeling great.  Have my pack up and out of town sorted.  My routine when I get into my albergue for the evening and know exactly where everything is in my pack.  In approximately 3 days I will be over the halfway mark which will be 388kms I will have walked in 2.5 weeks.  

I am amazed by the amount of people with injuries such as horrendous blisters, tendinitis, bad knees, 

It is not an easy walk and I am so glad that I wore my shoes in and got my orthotics weeks before I came as I have not suffered any sore feet at all other than tired feet from walking for 6-7 hours a day or muscles in my legs I didn’t know I had due to the massive mountains I have had to climb and worse than that coming down the other side.  

So now I listen to my body.  I start at about 7.15 as the sky is getting light and by 1.30-2ish my feet are usually screaming at me to sit down. So I stop, book into an albergue, have a shower, rinse out my clothes, hang them on the line and then order a very large beer!!!  Well deserved I say.  

So this morning up and out by 7.10am and hit the track.  It is quite funny to see other pilgrims coming down the way with there head lamps on – people not cars!!

Today was pretty flat walking most of the day.  One thing that I loved was this morning as the sky was becoming lighter on the right hand side of me were white flashing lights up high and on the left hand side of me were red lights flashing.  I could have been in the middle of some alien/sci-fi movie or another planet. It was all the lights from all the windmills that you continually see along all the mountain ridges.  There are 100s of them and they look spectacular. 

I would imagine all the lights were to warn low flying aircraft.  

Another thing I noticed as the sun came up is the amount of jet stream in the sky.  This morning I counted at least 8 aircraft flying in all different directions with all the jet stream behind them.  When there is not a cloud in the sky it is pretty spectacular.  

Got to Hontanos by about 8 and ran into one of the girls from last nights Albergue but too early to stop so kept going. Walked onto San Anton where there were ruins of a convent that dated back to 1146 and was dedicated to the care of pilgrims who suffered from the ‘the fire of San anton’ a disease that spread through the Middle Ages.  

Opposite these ruins was a courtyard were this lovely music was coming from.  A Scottish jig then Danny Boy.  I couldn’t help having a laugh at this.  So I went in for a coffee a cheese sandwich a loo stop and off I went.  

Walked into the town of Castrojeriz which yet again is another ancient town.  It was very flat all around leading into the town but there was a large hill overlooking the town with a massive crumbling monastery on the top

The church in the town was pretty old as well dating back to 1214

Looking back from where I had walked it was pretty amazing countryside 

This is from the mountain I Had to climb after passing through Castrojeriz.  And that is the way I came along the track.   That is the ruin on the top of the hill that you saw before from the approach.  This is having climbed the mountain beyond and the view

This is the track and the mountain I climbed and as always you have to come down the other side

This is where you discover muscles you never knew you had!!!

As you can see from the photo it was pretty flat and hot.  And that is the track I walked straight through the middle. 

Once I got down on the flat and kept walking the landscape changed again and I walked over a single lane bridge with traffic lights for the cars to stop while the pilgrims walk over it 

A right turn over the bridge and a 900m stroll to Itero de la Vega and my body said stop. 
So here I am in my albergue for the evening.  I have got a bit of a taste for a lemon flavoured beer. It doesn’t have a slice of lemon in it the lemon flavour is in the beer.  

My downloading of photos has come to an end as the wifi is dwindling so no last photos but at least you have a few.  

I am now off to pick up my book and enjoy the rest of the Spanish evening

Adios Amigos