Santo Domingo to Belorado, 24km

Dad has been making suggestions for what he calls the ‘grey matter play list’. Unfortunately it is pretty hard to programme and I wind up with the most ridiculous songs rolling through my head.  Here is me thinking I had five weeks to ponder the great philosophical questions of our time when yesterday a good portion of my headspace was dedicated to a continuous loop of ‘You don’t make friends with salad’.  Quality.

Today though, I think I absolutely nailed it with a six hour soundtrack alternating between The Proclaimers’ 500 miles and Small Faces’ Lazy Sunday.  Not sure why, when every day is the same, but today definitely had a delightful Sunday afternoon feel about it.  

For the most part, the path today was along an access road alongside a major motorway, so there wasn’t a whole lot of euphoria over the scenery. We also started out from one of the most popular towns on the camino, so this morning – after we had been booted out of the albergue kicking and screaming at 8am (them’s the rules in all albergues) – there was a weird kind of traffic jam, with walkers spaced every twenty metres up the road. Even if we were really into it, it would probably have been a bit of a grin and bear it day, but there wasn’t a great deal of energy in the team today. Gonzalo’s knee was still giving him grief, despite him telling us otherwise through gritted teeth. Meanwhile, we girls were a little jaded from yesterday and were happy to meander along at a snail’s pace. On top of that, I seem to have grown an impressive crop of blisters overnight and was getting a truckload of angst from my feet over yesterday’s mammoth effort.  So at the first village we came to (a mere 7km down the road) we were happy to let the power pilgrims pass us by while we chilled with brunch. After that, the general consensus was walk for an hour, stop in a cafeteria for half hour, walk for an hour, lay on a park bench for half an hour. Rinse. Repeat.  You get the picture. 

The scenery wasn’t up to scratch (though still lovely if you turned your back on the highway) and my feet were causing me a whole world of pain, but oddly enough, with the laid back Sunday afternoon feel to it (topped off by a jug or two of sangria when we arrived) I think today might have to go down as one of my best days so far – purely on the comaraderie factor. But here’s hoping Monday Brings a bit more va-va-voom!