Rabe de las Catizalda to Hontanas

BEUN CAMINO  the words you hear as you pass or someone passes you on the Camino. Also, as you are leaving or they are leaving an albergue or restaurant. As you pass through a village or other places and a Spainish person yells out to you. The words you hear on the Camino, in the country but when you hit the cities you get strange looks or someone whispers to another person. Then all of a sudden someone shouts Beun Camino and you realize yes you are a pilgrim and you belong On The WAY.

Last night I attended Vespers with the Sisters of Charity. It was a lovely quiet service with a pilgrim blessing and a medallion given to each attendant. In 1830 a novice nun of their order saw the Virgin Mary several times and she asked that a medallion be made. It shows Mary stomping a serpent (representing evil) on top of a globe of the world with rays of light coming from her hands. These rays of light represent the graces given to those who ask. She is surrounded by 12 stars, the apostles, that represents the founding of the church and she is the mother.

So this morning Roz got up and said, "I am falling apart." Her ankle had been bothering her. Consequences of city walking and a heavy backpack. She had the start of a cold and now her back molar had broken during the night. They say the first third of the Camino is physical and I can attest to that and the second is mental. We were now going to be tested in a very different way.

Some of the towns on the Camino really take the Camino de Santiago to heart. Many of these towns are off the beaten track from the main roads. And if you take a train or bus away from the Camino you realize they are like little pockets of quiet, peaceful history.

These were murals we saw on our way out of Rabe de las Calzadas. 

Relatively flat and a beautiful morning. 

It was a lovely walk.

Looking back towards Rabe de las Calzadas.

Looking forward.

Then we started up hill and then down into Hornillos del Camino. The hill down into Hornillos is called Mule Killer. Not sure why. It is a steep decline but we have been on worse.

Not too too steep.

Hornillos was an important medieval stop on the Camino, is a classic medieval pilgrim town and little has changed over the past centuries.

Roz and I figure this day was two days in one. The lovely easy walk in the morning and the afternoon was a very different beast.

A sandwich never tasted so good. We hung out at this little store where the sandwiches were half a loaf of bread. We tried getting  a cab as the weather was turning nasty. We had heard Hurricane  Kirk was going to hit our part of Spain so we had decided to walk part and then cab it to the next stop. We eventually got some help and phoned the taxi only to find out his car was broken. He gave us another number and he said it would cost 40 euros to go 10 km. We said, "We'll walk for that price." Stubborn and cheap we are. Oh and this was only half the sandwich.

Well famous last words. It started raining so we had our ponchos on. The wind was howling as we set out of Hornillos. It wasn't long before I was thinking, "It was only 20 euros each." Thank goodness the rain let up so we could take our ponchos off as they were acting like sails. I have no pictures of Hornillos to Hontanas as I was more concerned about staying attached to the ground. We were on top of the flat hills of the Meseta heading for Hontanas.

The winds were blowing so hard that you would have to basically stand still or walk like a drunk and then when the gust let up you walked really fast until the next one came along. It was extremely hard work.

Our new look. Even with my buff on my head and my head facing the ground the wind blew my hat off twice.

We came to spot that we could find shelter. We hunkered below some stones  and checked how far we had to go 5km. Oh my God. So we trundled off again and walked for what seemed like forever and almost cried when we say a sign that said still 2km. Now usually when we see there is only 2 we march along quite smartly but today was agony. We also kept saying where is Hontanas because usually you can see the town ahead. At .5km all of a sudden we crested the hill and there it was.
We made our way to our albergue and hunkered down in our bunks with the other pilgrims trying to get warm and stop the wind from blowing the shutters open. We eventually placed stacked lockers in front of them. By dinner the winds had lessened and we had a tale to tell.