Camino de Santiago – Santo Domingo to Belorado to Villafranca Montes de Oca

Santo Domingo to Belorado

A couple of shots coming out of Santo Domingo this morning.

Misplaced myself a little bit on the way out of town this morning. As soon as you stop seeing the way-markers you know you are off course. I knew I wasn’t far off and was lucky enough to just walk over a couple of streets and pick the markers up again. Today was a gradual uphill and I walked with Dave (USA) for a while into Grañon, where I sat for longer than planned but happened to meet Caroline (USA) and we walked together to the next town, where I stopped briefly and she kept going. Caught up with her again when we both stopped for lunch and walked together again for a while. It’s amazing how fast the kms go when you are walking and talking with someone.

Today was 23kms, it was bloody hot, it was dry, it was dusty, it was mostly on bitumen, it was right next to the highway and it was 50 Shades of Brown. The beauty of being beside the highway was that when trucks and semi’s went past they created a breeze.

As far as scenery goes, it was probably the most boring day. But having just bitched about it, it was still a really good day. I walked 23kms, the last 4 kms sucked, as always, I chatted to lots of people (although they are all moving ahead of me) and I felt strong in my walking.

Belorado to Villafranca Montes de Oca

Only 12.7kms today…..piece of cake. Well, that’s what I thought. Gradual uphill for most of the day but nothing too hard, should be easy. The Camino has a funny way of teaching one lessons….especially when one gets cocky about a short day. I struggled every bloody step of the way. I ran into Dave again when I stopped for second breakfast (or early lunch) at the halfway mark and I got the impression he wanted to walk with me but I was struggling too much and made my excuses.

While walking with someone makes the kms and the time pass much quicker, I’m more than happy to walk on my (or with someone) in silence. I spend so much time on my own, I’m used to the quiet, although sometimes in my head it’s quite noisy.. So, I guess that begs the question, “what do I think about?”. Well, I write my blogs in my head and then can’t remember a word of it when it comes to actually typing it out. I try not to think about how much my feet hurt. When I’m really flagging and need help, I drag out the ipod and listen to my walking tunes (they are mostly high energy tunes) and hope I can pick up the pace a bit. I quite often wonder why I’m doing this.

Someone asked me what I do for my feet. The brutally honest answer is nothing. In the last week, I’ve started taking my shoes and socks off whenever I stop for a break, to let my feet air out. But I don’t do a thing to them, other than try and rest them.

The villages we are passing through are so incredibly old. It’s really hard to fathom that they’ve been here for centuries. Mind you a lot of these buildings are just about falling down but still. It’s so hard to get your head around the age of these buildings some are nearly 1000 years old. And I’ve walked down roads that the Romans built….people in togas have walked these roads, millions of pilgrims have walked these roads. It is all very mind-boggling.