The morning is cool. No, no, to be honest, the morning is cold. Yes that’s it. That’s why my hands are frozen on my walking stick. The morning is cold!

We leave Santa Domingo de Calzada at about 8.15 and promise ourselves a breakfast at Grañon, which we should reach in little over an hour. We get to Grañon, but Grañon has no breakfast. Nothing open. Grañon is closed. This is not good news for a hungry hiker, on a cold morning. There is not, however, much choice. We walk on for another 40 minutes. We leave LA Rioja and enter the province of Castilla y Leon. At least here, we find food. Sitting outside a nice cafe, breakfast is shared with about 10 other pilgrims. We all in turn have a go at trying to fix Vicki’s walking stick, which has somehow detached itself in the centre. We all try but none are successful.

As we walk along, I think about how far we’ve come, and how far we have to go. It is hard to know how to measure such things on the Camino. I could look at a map and point to where I am. But in many ways, I don’t know. I walk all day. Tomorrow, I will walk again. It is that way. It really doesn’t matter where we are. We live in a world of walking forward. If I try to think about measuring it, I don’t know whether to measure in km’s or days. And how many we’ve done and how many remain is unimportant. I’m sure it will be important when there are only 3 or 4 days left. But right now, it is only about walking. Nonetheless, there does seem to have been a disturbance in the space/time continuum. All through La Rioja, there are wooden poles, showing the distance to Santiago de Compostela. The last one I saw, before leaving LA Rioja, showed 555 kms. Now in Castilla y Leon, I see signs showing 575 kms left. Oh, oh. A quick check that we are actually going the right direction. Everything seems ok. I expect someone will tell me, if I’m heading back to France.

By the time we leave Belorado we’re thinking, “Let’s do another hour or so and look for somewhere to stay”. There are some pretty sleepy villages along the route. Tostantos has an albergue but our guide book tells us that all mattresses are on the floor. We move on. The tiny village of Epinosa has a suitably tiny, and very old albergue. It also has a bar attached and the thoughts of cold beer and €5 for a bed for the night are irresistible. We collapse into some chairs with cool glasses in our hands. We are joined for dinner by a mixed group of Americans and Brazilians. They are lovely people and we have a very pleasant evening with them.

We’re getting close to Burgos. That’ll be a break from pilgrim and a day as tourist. Looking forward to it.