Day 15 .. Carrion de los Condes to Sahagun

... Actually did start early and it was a good job. Faced with a roman road 17 km long and no shade. Those roman boys sure know how to keep a road straight - I suspect they had a 17 km long piece of string. You can't say much about a 17km straight road except its an experience in making sure you have a car next time. Next village.. Coffee. Ledigos. We then sat on a roadside and had sandwhich lunch which would have been unremarkable if a large st bernard dog had not crept up on lynda. "there's a dog behind you" warning went unheaded and much screaming ensued startling all pilgrims and certainly the poor dog who was obviously more sensitive to high pitched noise than the rest of us. It stampede off through a barley field. No more pilgrims for the dog.. Not for a long time.
The day was long and the walk was hard. The longest day in fact and Winston Churchill would have been very welcome to keep up our spirits. We discovered a hippy peace garden (apologies to hippies) which provided fruit muesli bars and earl grey tea ... All on little table in the middle of nowhere. Very strange but highly entertaining. We almost stayed at san nicolas del real camino only due to the fact grande beers were available.. Sun was hot and it was a lovely time of the day.. But pilgrims need to keep moving and we set off for an excrutiating last 7.5km to sahagun. Accommodation is a little weird. Not the double rooms we thought we might get but the people running this modern refugio were very welcoming and after some home made soup a la lynda and a bottle of best rioja at 5 euro we are crashing early.. Lots of blankets.. Pilgrims very happy to be horizontal. Tomorrow luxury beckons!

Ps Pilgrim sally was desparate to get onto the internet tonigh but thwarted by biopic 80 yr old typing with one finger and cursing every time a spanish dialog box appeared.(Apologies to all 80 yr old cyberchicks). She says sorry to all friends and family that she has not emailed for a while - she has said she will rise before the sun and check mail and blog! We will see!
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