Day 18 – Villalcázar de Sirga to Terradillos de los Templarios – 31.5 km

Well, today I realized what the meseta really means, and it’s not like yesterday, or the day before. It was so quiet, so flat, so hot and I was so alone – more about this later – that at one point I had enough of my own thoughts for the first time on the Camino. I heard rumors about the last 2-3 days before León. Some find it liberating, some find it terrible, and I can relate to that – maybe we made a mistake with Cindy when we split up for most of the day – or I don’t know, maybe, she had the time of her life in the silence finally without me… – did you? 🤨😃

I mean it’s beautiful, it’s just too long for 30 km…

Okay but let’s not jump ahead this much and rewind back to 7 o’clock in the morning, where we decided …

… where we decided that since we are a bit behind and we have a straight, flat, and easy route in the upcoming days, we can push it and do around 30 km a day.
Silly. Oh so silly. 
We made a reservation for beds later in the morning, and they stated that because of high demand if we didn’t arrive by 4pm they gonna give the bed to someone else. Fair enough – and no worries, we will smash it easy, anyway. 💪😤
Silly. Oh so silly. 

Needless to say, I guess, we didn’t smash it, nor it was easy. I think it was one of the hardest days for me, mentally and physically too – at least it’s in the top 3. Even though we started very early in the morning – unusual for us… – it became very hot very fast. No shadow whatsoever and pretty much nothing on the 90% of the route. No bars, no restaurants. Nothing. So be very well prepared for this day. 

Time was passing, and it started to feel like we were not gonna make it by 4pm, and after 31 km it would’ve been quite rough to continue god-knows how long till we find a bed tonight. The albergue didn’t answer any calls, and I got no answer to my email either – I wanted to say that we are on the way, we are going, so pleasepleaseplease don’t give our beds away if we arrive later. I decided to speed it up a bit and try to make it around 4 o’clock. I left Cindy behind at one point in the early afternoon and started to push through as much as I could but the heat and the sun won. I got completely destroyed, tired, and dehydrated and I had to stop at Albergue Camino Real for a rest after 22 km. I asked them if they had by any chance 2 beds available – of course not. That wasn’t good news considering that our final stop was still 9 km away. I was sitting outside on a bench trying to collect some energy to continue when I saw Cindy arriving. That was all the effort I was trying to put into my walk today – 20 or something minutes later she caught up with me. So we were like whatever, let’s continue together if we won’t make it by 4pm and we won’t have a bed… then… well that’s a problem for that moment in the quite near future actually – but really, whatever.

 Don’t quit before the Miracle –  accurate, not gonna lie.

I heard stories that many people would give up during this stage of the Camino. I wasn’t considering giving up or anything, but maybe I kind of understand someone who would. My “miracle” today was a big-ass burger for dinner like the size of my head, accompanied by a bucket of diet-coke with lots of ice and a pinch of lemon. 

We were keeping a faster pace, but obviously, both of us were dead by now. And of course 4pm hit – we heard those bells tolling in our ears, you know like in movies. It was a good 3 km to go still, so I decided to give a final push and just see what happens. I went ahead again, I remember running in the last meters and falling through the Albergue’s front door somewhere around 4:25 – like at the end of Chariots of Fire… Long story short – they read the email but thought it’s not important to answer, hence we got our beds for the night, and look what else I got…

Day 19 – Terradillos de los Templarios to Sahagún – 10.9 km ( + bus to León 53.4 km )

We woke up with an attitude today that.. let’s just say wasn’t ideal on this trip – it was one of those strange “f@~$ this” feelings. So, the decision has been made: let’s go to Sahagún to see the halfway sign of the Camino, and from there later in the afternoon, let’s take a bus to León – it’s a perfect city to take a rest day as well, let the others arrive too, and we can more or less carry on together again from León. 

Sounds like a plan. 

Still straight, still meseta, still very hot – but today at least there were some trees every now and then also a bit of going up and down, nothing serious tho’ but still. 5.4 km later we arrived at San Nicolás del Real Camino. It was the perfect place to sit down for a coffee and a bit of breakfast – … the 2nd bar is apparently recommended by Socrates, I mean… that’s something. 

After the cafecito, we ran into Guardia Civil at the end of the town, and for some reason, they were navigating everyone on a different route, where the walking path is going near the motorway – Burgos flashback. Not that bad, and in this way they made us cross the Palencia sign too before arriving in Sahagún.

Sahagún is a bit … what can I say? Underwhelming. I thought it’s gonna be something mooOore to represent the halfway point of the Camino Frances…  or maybe I was just not there emotionally that day… Not sure.
Spoiler alert… to me, it was more emotional arriving at the 0 km at Fisterra than arriving at Santiago de Compostela. Maybe I’m just weird that way?!

Hermitage of La Virgen del Puente