El Camino de Santiago - 2017

Day 9: Tardajos to Hontanas

Sunrise view from our 2nd floor window at La Fabrica in Tardajos

Michelle wrote:
15 Sept. Friday

We didn’t get up until almost 8:00 am today!  That is one of the drawbacks of being in a nice quiet private room.  You don’t hear everyone else getting up and leaving.  We left at 9:00 and walked to Rabe de las Calzaldas - a nice village.  We stopped at a cafe for breakfast and the owner talked and talked to Curtis.  He gave us necklaces with a little medallion of Mary on it.  There is a beautiful building that is a convent in that village - not a common sight.  

We climbed up a long slope to the meseta.  It has been a cool 53 degree windy day.  The temperature drops about 5 degrees when a cloud crosses the sun.  The meseta is relatively flat and goes on and on and on.  There are not very many trees, but there are wind turbines and fields of cut and baled hay.

Grapes, nearly ripe growing along the wall

We dropped down into a village called Hornillos del Camino and had a drink and a snack.  Then back up onto the meseta for another 11 km.  We were beginning to think that there was no end to the meseta.  We were looking for church bell towers or cell towers to tell us we were close to the next town, but we couldn’t see any.  Then we dropped down into a village - Hontanas - where we were glad to stop for the night.  We couldn’t see the church tower because it is below the ridge of the meseta.  It was a sunny but chilly day and the albergue had an awesome clothesline on the side of the hill.  It was on a cement pad that had a wall behind it to catch the warmth of the sun and the wind.  I am becoming quite a connoisseur of clotheslines!  We shared a room and a bathroom with 6 other people.  It was not as comfortable sharing again, but we survived.  We met Ann and Scott Sweeney from Oregon.  They are a nice, fun and interesting couple.  Scott is a retired fireman and Ann was a banker for many years.  We ate a communal meal and had chicken paella.  I got to serve everyone the paella from a huge frying pan.  The church in Hontanas is a small humble church, but I liked it better than the big fancy ones.  There was soft music playing and some candles burning.  It seemed more personal and loving than some of the big churches we looked at.  

Curtis writes:
This turned out to be our first day on the meseta.  As you will see in the photos further down, the topography is different from what it was East of Burgos.
We liked thc clean and well maintained look of Tardajos and Rabe de las Calzadas.  We found that the further we walked from the cities, the more empoverished the villages were.

Walking through Rabé de las Calzadas

 The building in the picture below is across a small plaza from where we ate breakfast.  When we saw this building from afar, I said: "That looks like the Relief Society building."  See, in the small town where my mother was raised there is a small sturdy building (less than half the size of this one) that was specifically for the Relief Society.  Well, it turns out I was right.

Over the entrance it says:
Hijas de la Caridad
Centro La Milagrosa

The plaza and church at Rabe de las Calzadas

It was nice to walk on a well-maintained road.  It was very very rare to see a car or truck on these roads.

A rare site: 3 generations of Camino signs.

The hike today was the most flat we've experienced on the Camino.  Think southern Idaho; even the wind was constant, and cool. The clouds were sparse and trees rare, so the cool breeze was actually helpful.

Approaching Hornillos del Camino

Click HERE to see it in Google Maps

In Hornillos, shown above, we stopped for a bite to eat.  Totally against my character, I had a dish of pickled fish, like sardine size.  I don't know what they were, but it tasted good.  I think the bar was called Casa Manolo.  It was very small with only about 8 seats.  It was clean and the service was with a smile.

Before reaching our destination, we passed the most lonely albergue on the Camino (that we've seen), Albergue San Bol.  Studying it from the road, we did not see any movement, so we're not sure it was open.

Albergue San Bol is in the valley ahead, in the shade of the trees. 
The Camino continues back up onto the meseta towards the right of the picture.

This picture is looking back to where the previous picture was taken 20 minutes before.

Our destination, Hontanas, is about 19.5km from Tardajos where we started.

The road drops into a valley where Hontanas hides below the horizon.

Previous to this day, we could tell when we were approaching a community by the church bell tower or by the cell phone tower.  When we were within 1 km of Hontanas, we could see no sign of it.  You can see how flat the terrain is.  There were signs along the road indicating we were really close to town, but all we could see were fields, so it was hard to believe the signs.  But what joy it was to see that, indeed, the town is right there.  It's always better to be surprised with good news like "You don't have to walk any further today." Rather than, "You're not as close as you thought you were."

This is our albergue, Juan de Yepes

This albergue was clean and modern.  We bunked in a room with new friends from California, Scott and Ann, a woman from France and a woman from Belgium.  Six of us shared a bathroom.  There were 3 or 4 other rooms with similar arrangements.  The laundry was done by the hosts for 4 euros.  We chose to dry the clothes on the line rather than pay more for the dryer.  Dinner was ensalada mixta and paella.  Being that it takes me so much work to get the meat out of seafood, I'm not a big fan of paella; but the rice was good.  The picture below was taken by Ann.

Michelle dishing out the paella at albergue Juan de Yepes in Hontanas
(photo by Ann S.)

After dinner we explored the town just a little bit.  Michelle wrote about the simple humble church with soft music playing and low lighting mostly from candles.  Nice.

One of the nicer homes on main street in Hontanas

Sunset behind the belfry