The Song in My Head: Wild World - Yusuf / Cat Stevens
Word of the Day: Bedbugs
Today’s (Random) Craving/Memory: House of Coffee’s “Party in a Cup”
Total Steps: 49,313 steps
Total Walking Distance: 19.9 miles / 32.0 kilometers
⏰ Wake Up: 4:00am
💤 Sleep: 10:00pm
Goodmorning!
Today was very odd.
Woke up at 4, packed up and got on the road. All 8 of us left before 5, but at different times.
I left solo.
I ate a protein bar. Also walked past these cool ruins which is apparently a donativo on my way out of town. Wish I would’ve stayed there.
The sun came out then I was faced with a hill to climb.
Made it to the top, then had to go right back down.
Got hungry, ate a kiwi. It started to get hot so I put my bandana and hat on.
Then walked alongside a river into town.
Arrived in Fromista at 11:15am.
Stopped in the proxim market and got a banana. Best banana I’ve had a in a long time.
Got to the municipal Albergue, I was the first one.
The albergues in Frómista don’t open until 1:30pm, so I had a lot of time to kill.
I sat down at the door, elevated my legs against the wall and started to do research on albergues in town. Apparently the muni is really bad so I decided I’ll go to the other one after I nap.
Took nap, woke up and Martina and Willem had arrived. I then stretched, and hung out with them outside of the municipal.
Around 1pm, I walked over to the other albergue and met Laura and Benjamin there.
When the door opened, the receptionist had us go upstairs and claim a bed before we could pay. Odd, normally you pay and claim a bed after.
It was a frenzy. There are only 28 beds.
We luckily got a bed, and then went down to pay. They were charging an extra 1.50 euro for the cheap plastic bed sheets, so I said no, went to the bin with sheets from yesterday, and put them on my bed. Resourceful as frick.
Later, Nicolò and the other Italians arrived into town, but our albergue was already full. So they had to go to the municipal.
And when they got to their beds they found bed bugs.
So glad I trusted my gut.
They tried to get a refund to leave and the hosts yelled at them. So they left anyway and got a hotel. I felt real sorry for them.
I then went and met Max and Julio. They are biking across the meseta, and we’re just passing through town. I got an egg bocadillo at the store and hung out with them and caught up.
Since they are biking, I probably won’t see them again so we said our goodbyes.
They continued on to the next town, and I went in to shower and clean up.
Then I played kombio with Laura and Benjamin for a good hour. I was winning a lot today.
We then went to the store to get groceries because we were going to make dinner.
We went outside, and it was cloudy and there was a massive dust storm.
We ran to the grocery store. We walked in and they were playing The Final Countdown on the radio. Ominous. We went down the aisles looking for spaghetti ingredients when the power shut off in the whole store.
Mid-song.
I started laughing.
The entire town was without power. No internet, nothing.
For about 10 minutes, it was turning on and off repeatedly, until it finally came back on completely.
We got our food and left, once their registers fully rebooted.
We got back and started cooking. There was an Italian in the kitchen already, he was also making pasta, but it was bad so he asked to have some of our spaghetti. His name was Francesco
We started cooking and he was judging all our moves hahaha so I asked him if he wanted to help so he cooked the spaghetti for us.
Nicolò and Duncan joined us, and we all sat outside and ate. Food was good.
Then Nicolò brought up that Nutella is different in Europe than in the US. I will take any excuse to have a taste test so I ran across the street and got a jar.
We all ate it, and Francesco let us have some of his biscuits. It was a wonderful dessert.
After, we cleaned up and got ready for bed.
Tomorrow we walk 19km to Carrión de Los Condes. There is a really cool monastery you can stay in and they have nuns that sing for you. It will be a short day but the rest of our meseta will be 30km+ days. So we will get up at 5:30am, leave at 6am.
Also, the clouds are moving in and it might even rain tonight and tomorrow. Super stoked for that. Ready for a break from this heat wave.
See y’all then,
David