Camino Pilgrim

Third week on this Camino done with an absolutely astonishing weekly distance record of 273km! I doubt I will ever beat this one.

I got out an hour before sunrise today. Felt a little sleepy, but thought that a good brisk walk would shake that off. I reached Villabrazaro quickly. First 7km went by in a flash.

The green Camino trail is just insanely good. Unfortunately I got off the green Camino a kilometer after the village. My app showed the actual Camino trail and green Camino trail grow kilometers apart. Green Camino seemed to end in the middle of nowhere by a national highway. Thinking back, I should have taken my chances. I bet I would have seen a way to walk from the end of green Camino to La Nora del Rio through farm roads between fields.

Since I went on the real Camino I had to do 15 kilometers of narrow car road walking without any safe area from cars until La Nora del Rio. From that village I kept following the yellow arrows and stumbled upon a new version of the Via de la Plata trail. I bet it was developed to be connected with the green Camino. Anywho, I was several kilometers east of what I knew the app and Gronze website say about the trail today.

I went from La Nora del Rio by the river and some tree shade about 3 kilometers to Navianos de la Vega. Its a medium size tractor farmer village with no cars around and half of the buildings deserted. It did have a fountain ln the main square for pilgrims. The next 10km to San Juan de Torres were very hard. The sun was blazing at me with +28°C and the dry farmlands sucked all the moisture out from the air. I was so happy that there was a bar with food waiting for me on the other side of endless parallel farm plots. Yellow arrows guided me without a single issue.

I was guided out from San Juan de Torres also with yellow arrows, but that one was a bit tricky to find. A little after the bar, instead of going straight through the village as usual, you needed to turn left and continue in a straight line to the final destination lf the day – La Bañeza. Seems like a nice town with several hotel options in addition to the albergue.

Will do some grocery shopping now for a glorious dinner and strong breakfast. I am after all in the end of Via de la Plata. Astorga is less than 25km away. Time to celebrate the small wins!