Day 9 - 100 miles down

We did not get a good night’s sleep at the albergue in Santo Domingo. There were so many people, and the lights from the bathroom streamed into our room from a skylight. For many of the lights in the halls and bathrooms in albergues, they are set to motion sensors. Because we had beds right by the door and a skylight to the bathroom, we were aware of lights going on and off all night. (I write this not as a complaint but to show some of the realities of staying in albergues.)

We left at 6:20 because we had a long walk ahead of us. The temperature was 46 degrees outside which felt so fantastic! Outside of town, we missed a way marker and were headed in the wrong direction, but two older Spanish gentlemen were standing on the side of the road talking, and they hollered at us and pointed us along the correct path - thanks be to God.

Because we were not walking in close proximity to any other pilgrims, I let MK play her music without headphones. We belted out tunes from the first half of Les Mis together.
We arrived in our first village and had cafe con leche with a guy from California and a family from Ireland we’ve been walking with. Then we headed on. We had “elevenses” at the next village in a 150 year old albergue. A woman and her husband fixed us fresh omelette sandwiches and coffee con leche. MK had zumo natural which is fresh squeezed orange juice. So good!

We continued on keeping an eye on the dark clouds that threatened rain. A cold wind was blowing directly at us for the rest of our walk, so we were very glad to arrive in Belorado. We hiked 22.4 kilometers and passed the 100 mile mark of our journey somewhere along the way.
We found an albergue/pension with a private room for three upstairs. It also had a kitchen, living room, and shared bathroom. We grabbed groceries for dinner (gross microwave pasta) and then settled in to watch a futbol match on the television in the living room before bed with three folks from France and one from Spain.

We promised MK she could sleep in. She fell asleep at 6p and did not wake up until 7a, so she obviously needed the rest. We did a bit of laundry by hand before bed and set it out to dry. This is an almost daily part of our routine.

The next morning we walked to Hotel Jacobeo for breakfast. A typical desayuno is coffee and a sweet bread. Today it was a thick type of donut that is good for dunking.
After breakfast, we boarded a bus to travel to Burgos. We’ve reached the point in our trip where we must travel ahead to the last 150k of The Camino. It is good timing because we’ve walked for 9 days straight, and these travel days will serve as rest days as well.