Day 14 - Rabe de las Calzadas to Hontanas

I had only a short day planned for today – 18km. Rain storms were forecast from 10am so I wanted an early start. I popped my head out of the albergue’s front door at  7am to find it already raining. I put my poncho on and set of down the road, following two other pilgrims with their head torches on. I hung back, letting them do the path finding, but they soon pulled over to let the creepy guy go past. So I pushed on up the road which soon became a track. 

The rain had only been a foretaste of things to come so I pulled the poncho off and kept walking. The track rose steadily up on to the high Meseta and eventually dropped down, crossed a small river and then to another small village before climbing up to the Meseta again. This time, there were pilgrims in their ones and twos stretched out like dots on the landscape. As I reached and overtook them, more would show up in front with their colourful waterproof back-pack covers. From an airplane, we must have looked like little ants marching across the land, and this would be happening the whole 500 miles from St Jean to Santiago!

For a brief while, the sun came out and I could again see my silhouette in front of me again. I had not given it a thought on previous walks at home, but now, I had discovered from my guidebook, that it should be used to aide navigation. As I have had many, many, hour to ponder it, I can see that I am normally walking west by southwest. Silly, I know, but it helps to have a constant with me (when it’s not cloudy like it had been for the last few days) and something for me to glance at and think ‘Oh, I’m walking due west now’ or ‘west northwest’.

Small rain flurries come down on us and some of the pilgrims got into their rain gear. I kept my poncho off, thinking it was nothing. But then it started to rain with increasing persistence. And then it hammered down. Could I get my poncho on? No I could not! In the end a little 74 year old American lady, called Emily, came to the rescue and helped me to cover myself and pack from the worst of the weather. For Emily, this is her 4th Camino and she said that normally, these are really hot sections where you leave the albergue hours before dawn to avoid the suffocating heat.

The then the worst of the rain stopped and a few minutes later, I could see the small town of Hontanas nestled into a fold of the plain. I soon found my albergue and an early finish for my short walking day.


Comments

  1. Lyn25 September 2021 at 00:09

    You need to stay close to Emily, she's got the hang of that poncho!

    ReplyDelete
  2. MartinV25 September 2021 at 17:09

    Haha, I think you are right!

    ReplyDelete

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