Day 13 - Santo Domingo to Beyond Belorado

Another strange morning as we had an offer come through on the house from a guy I play basketball with. After a few phone calls, we broke away from Santo Domingo at the late hour of 8 am. We knew it was going to be a relatively mild day so we were okay with walking until later in the afternoon. Little did I know that we would push on through our intended destination and land at the tiny hamletino (not a typo, I'm adding a diminutive ) of Tosantos. Our choices for accommodations: the free (donation) Albergue associated with the church where you slept in a room with 30 other smelly hikers on mats on the floor or the bar across the street that had 8 sets of bunk beds in the adjoining building. Given our old bones (my old bones), we opted for a proper mattress and a cold beer. Lots of people hanging out in the courtyard of the bar with their good wifi but only one other traveller in the bunk house - Deidre (I think) from Belgium.

Stain Glass in Groñón

As with most days, some of the sections went faster (mentally) and others went slower. My foot seems to be doing better but it's still sprained - often seems worse when we stop. Our fast first 7k to Grañón was rewarded with a nice breakfast where we caught up with a few people we had seen along the way, a great bakery supplying bread and cookies for our picnic lunch, and the modern day stain glass from a very ancient church.

The rest of the towns were pretty uninspiring which is why we pushed past Belorado and onto Tosantos. (The delicious fresh cut Iberian Ham and a deviled egg from the roadside cafe León adding a bright spot.) Tomorrow has a hard climb and our extra mileage has shortened our day by an hour (unless we press on further).

Now I sit in my bunk typing away as Deidre snores lightly and Janine texts back and forth with the realtor. So ends another day in our journey.