At 7:30 a woman comes into the room playing Basque music. She turns on the light and says we have to get up now. Only Ryan and I are left in the room. Everyone else has already left. We get ready quickly, taking painkillers and putting cream on our feet, of course, before bells ring in the entire hostel at 7:55 and everyone has to leave. We look for a bar where we can have breakfast in peace and don't start the Camino until 8:40.
Yesterday evening I met Burkhard in the restaurant, whom I already knew from the hostel in Ventosa. Burkhard has divided his Camino into 4 parts and is now walking the last 800km. In recent years he has already done stages through Germany, Switzerland and France. When he arrives in Santiago in May, he will have covered a total of over 3,000km on the Way of St. James.
This morning I noticed that I had lost/forgot my headphones in Najera yesterday morning. But after calling the accommodation I was relieved. The Colombian couple who run the accommodation there found them. We are organising through the backpack transport companies to have the headphones sent to San Juan tomorrow. They will definitely be the smallest suitcases that have been transported so far 🤣
Very, very cold, but luckily without wind and with sunshine, we set off for the first few kilometers. Shortly before the first town, Adva is ahead of us. We catch up with her and take a break together at a food truck in the town. The next few hours pass fields, with nothing special. In the next town we meet Hendrik (who I also had dinner with last night) and he accompanies us for an hour. That was also the only hour today in which I didn't speak English. Adva has made it his mission today to "bomb" all of my pictures. After further breaks and applying cream to our feet, we walk dully along the country road for the last few hours before we reach Belorado, today's destination, at around 4 p.m. Overall, the route today was really very monotonous and was only enhanced by the occasional street art graffiti. There is a pool in the hostel and because it is so warm today, we are very motivated to jump in and cool off. After we've put our things down, we notice that the water is ice cold, so only our legs get a bath to regenerate. This is desperately needed. Our feet still hurt a lot, but it's bearable. Then we head into the town, where there's a lot of street art and it's much bigger than we expected.
Today is Wednesday, so it's steak day. We're looking for a restaurant where I can eat my obligatory steak and then we're going to the hostel and bed - but it's pretty late for me. 🙏
As I wrote above, my headphones will arrive in San Juan tomorrow. I want to make it there, even if it means the stage will be a little longer and I have to set off early in order to make it by the afternoon, even at my current rather leisurely pace.
Cost of the day:
Accommodation 12€ Breakfast 14€ Food on the way 11€ Dinner 38€