El Camino de Santiago - 2017

Day 11: Itero de la Vega to Poblacion de Campos

Michelle wrote:
17 Sept. Sunday
We got up at 7:30 and cooked some eggs and had kiwi yogurts, croissants that had a vanilla filling and the ends dipped in chocolate (!) and a fruit called an Uruguayo.  It had a skin that looked and felt like a peach, but you can’t eat the skin.  It was crunchy like an apple and it tasted a little like a peach or nectarine.  It’s shape was more like a tiny pumpkin - more squashed than round.  

We left the albergue around 9:00 am and walked 8.5 km to the next town.  There were not many hills, but there were HUGE fields!  We finally saw some sheep and a dairy, but no cows!  We followed a pretty canal into the large town of Fromista.  There is a cool lock on the canal there.  Other than that we were not impressed with Fromista.  We tried to find a farmacia that was open on Sunday, but could not find one.  I had to continue limping along, hoping to find some more blister bandaids.  I had two blisters under my callouses on my heels and my feet hurt.  

We walked 4 km more to our albergue, La Finca,in the village of Poblacion de Campos, where we stopped for the day.  This was a new albergue and we were in the 'addition', which wasn’t quite finished.  The beds were in alcoves with a curtain for privacy, or you could go up some stairs to a little loft.  The semi-private space felt nice.  However, there was no hot water for the showers and there was a bad drainage problem.  The other building had hot water and a washing machine.  I took a cold sponge bath, washed my hair in the other building’s shower.  We were able to wash our clothes in the washing machine for free, so it was a trade off, kind of.  We hung our clothes out on the line to dry in the wind and sun.  We had a late lunch with our friends from Oregon, the Sweeneys.  We are liking them more each time we see them.  Nice people.

Dinner was a communal meal in the restaurant and very hearty.  They served a meat that we couldn’t recognize - rabbit!  I didn’t have any and Curtis said it had too many bones.  Some people liked it.  We went to bed in our cute little cubicles but were woken up at 11:00 pm by 2 drunk pilgrims that were talking loudly and being very inconsiderate of the other pilgrims who were trying to sleep.  It was very disappointing.

Curtis writes:
What was disappointing was that one of the drunks was the lady from Tennessee whom we met entering Castrojeriz, whose southern accent was pleasant to listen to the day before.  The pilgrims on the Camino are one big family.  We have a familiar love and interest in the success of each other on the Camino.  And we have our problems, like every family.  So, at 11:00pm, the French man with whom we had enjoyed dinner 4 hours earlier (he and his wife liked the rabbit) was telling the drunk lady she had to stop talking on the phone in 10 minutes because she was making too much noise.  (True)  Her drunk friend tried to defend her with the excuse that her family is in America.  He insisted the call had to end.  I considered trying to help, but concluded that my entrance into the fray would just delay its resolution.

Trees lining the path approaching and leaving
Itero de la Vega, left pleasant memories of
that part of the Camino.

We were in a part of Spain where hi-speed wifi is not a big priority. Consequently I could only post a few pictures on Facebook Friday night, and it was the same in Poblacion de Campos (5km beyond Frómista).  I bring it up as a warning to future hikers - beware that this is a pilgramage with sacrifices.  Don't waste time regretting the loss of fast internet access- rather, find solace in the insulating distance from the caos of the world.  The silence is an opportunity to listen to your own heart, and hearing clearly now, you can tune your soul (heart and mind) to resonate with what is most important.

Ironically, for some hikers, the loudest thing heard is the pain from walking.  It's interesting that feet problems had stayed away until this part of the trail. Blisters were starting to appear on Michelles feet and my left foot felt like the bone at the ball of the foot was bruised.

Canal de Castilla

This day we hiked 17.7km, hoping for improvement to the feet. Fortunatly, it was quite flat. It was not boring. Part of it was along the Canal de Castilla.  This canal is fed from the Rio Pisuerga as it comes down out of the Picos de Europa, south of Santander.  We crossed Rio Pisuerga the day before, as we approached Itero de la Vega.  The canal and the river come back together in Valladolid.

Huge field beyond the Canal de Castilla

Former locks on the canal near Fromista

It was good to see the canal filled to capacity, even though the drought was having a severe impact.  There is something calming about walking next to running water. 

The locks near Fromista engaged the Civil Engineer in me.  Sometime I wonder how it is that I'm not a Civil Engineer.  I've loved channeling water since I was a kid playing in the irrigation dich next to my home in the desert of Chihuahua.

We were disappointed with Fromista for 2 reasons:  We were hoping to find an open pharmacy where Michelle could find the bandage she needed for her foot.  The second reason is more complicated.  It was Sunday, and we were not able to carry out our normal Sunday activities.  There were wondering thoughts as to whether we tried hard enough.  You can draw a triangle with vertices at Burgos, Valladolid and Leon.  Fromista is close to being in the middle of that triangle.  See on Google Maps

Leaving Fromista we had a long flat walk to Poblacion.  It was so straight and flat that I challanged myself to see how far I could walk with Michelle guiding me while I walked with my eyes closed.  I think I lasted 20 minutes.

Straight section from Fromista to Poblacion de Campos

We were looking forward to the Albergue in Poblacion because of the reviews given by other pilgrims. 

Albergue La Finca
An experience very different from Albergue La Fabrica

 The concept of having private curtained-off cubes was appealing.  How cozy!

Private cube in La Finca

As seen above, there are two buildings. We ended up in the newer building (brown wood siding to the left).  Unfortunately, it was so new that the hot water had not been hooked up, and the drains in the showers... well they didn't.  While the washer was free (nice), the clothes lines were in the weeds, not on the nice grass. :(

Cube arrangement: the stairs go to a cube
above each cube at the ground leve.

I think La Finca has the potential to be a nice place, but in Sept. 2017 it was not quite there.