Today we walked 14.2 miles (22.9 km) in 8 hours with a couple of breaks.

We started the morning in Santo Domingo about 8am and grabbed a couple of things for a makeshift walking breakfast as we made our way out of town. About an hour later we came into the town of Grañon and found a gathering of pilgrims at a little store with tables and chairs outside, so we sat down and had the rest of our breakfast while Ted & Lisa went in search of coffee.

After about half an hour back on the trail, we left the region of “La Rioja” and entered “Castilla y Leon”, with a nice big border sign and map of the Camino to mark the location.

We went through two more “ghost towns” today, so lunch got changed to a picnic in a park, with all the various snacks everyone was carrying laid out on the table. We’re basically walking grocery stores at times so nobody went hungry.

After a seemingly endless gravel road running parallel to the highway, we finally made it to the town of Belorado, with a population of about 2,100. I got a slight sunburn today, and the shorts and sunglasses were definitely in use, so we’re thankfully already seeing a big improvement in the weather over last year. I guess I’ll need to break out the sunscreen tomorrow though.

We were pretty tired after yesterday so I wasn’t sure how we’d all feel today, but we walked further and ended the day feeling slightly better than yesterday.

T&L found a good place for tonight’s dinner while I was showering and washing clothes (and Kathey was napping) so we’ll be heading out soon since we’re all pretty hungry.

Enjoy the photos from today!

Red poppies in the foreground, white and purple poppies in the field:

A note left hanging next to a yellow arrow from pilgrims for their friend:

Drying socks on the walking clothesline:

Belorado:

Our albergue tonight: Cuatro Cantones: