Just a brief comment to close off yesterday’s blog and perhaps add a (rare) pinch of hokey history.
I mentioned a chicken coop in the back yard of the Albergue, which no doubt seemed out of place. It did to me, initially. However, asking around, there is some heavy historical and traditional relevance as Santo Domingo de la Calzada is (apparently) most famous for the legend of the “cock that crowed again.” There is a lot of cock imagery here – all of which has nothing to do with Lord Dampnut or the Mini-Me, knob-accomplice, Anthony “Tourret” Scaramucci.
There are, as is usually the case, several versions of this story, however the one I heard was this: a couple from Cologne were traveling to Santiago de Compostela on a pilgrimage with their son, Hugonell. Apparently, the innkeeper’s daughter took a fancy to Hugonell, but he virtuously resisted her advances.
During the night, once the vengeful, over-sexed nymphette had finished pleasuring herself, she took the large silver goblet that she had been using and (somehow) hid it in his possessions. In the morning, she denounced him as a thief and he was hanged, Beijing-style, summary justice. No mention of organ-harvesting.
As his parents were preparing to depart, they heard Hugonell’s voice imploring them that he was still alive and that St Dominic (Santo Domingo) was holding him up by his feet – all very David Blaine and WELL ahead of its time… The parents ran off to tell the magistrate the story. The magistrate responded that their son was no more alive than the cock and hen on his plate! Whereupon…. the birds grew feathers, jumped off the plate and fluttered around the room proving that Hugonell was indeed innocent. Quod Erat Demonstratum, I guess.
Friday Haiku: Walking is walking. Fields are fields. Dirt is dirt. Same shit, different day.
Today was short. I left at 0500 because this Albergue requires you to clear out by 0700 and not 0800 as usual. With 140+ odiferous pilgrims, I feared a surge for the bathroom facilities and decided to get ahead of it. Good job because as I awoke at 0430, so did another half dozen – and that was only from my room.
Now, 22.4 km later it’s 1030 and the Albergue of choice, Cuatro Cantones, wasn’t opening until 1200. What to do? Walk another 6km to a picturesque Albergue built into the side of a mountain….or sip Espresso, read the news and wait for the Albergue of choice to open….and its swimming pool?
I am shallow. I waited.
Somewhere just after sunrise (and what a corker it was, today), I crossed from the autonomous region of Rioja to the Junta de Castillo y Leon. Earlier, coming out of Santo 
Domingo under torchlight, I had crossed a river, the Rio Oja (and the penny dropped about how the region got it’s name). It was all beginning to gel AND then, to help, there was a whopping great sign in the middle of a dirt track to let you where you were. Thank you, Generalissimo. It meant a lot. More Merkel €uros being squandered.
When I got to Belorado (a grand-sounding name for a small town bisected by the N120 main road, just FYI), I plumped for the €12 room instead of the €7 dormitory as it meant 6 to a shower, loo etc as opposed to 30. This Albergue is almost completely self-contained: its own restaurant, communal kitchen, large back yard, speakers in the yard, cabanas, pool, they do your laundry for €3.50 (so I went all in). All that was missing was the fall-out shelter and the 3 years of dried rations. Still looking…..
It’s also not too busy. Yet….
It’s a mixed bunch. There’s the non-flushing Japanese cadre (see “Day 11 – What I Am Trying to Understand”), a group of cyclists who quickly hobbled off to bed for a siesta, a brace of wrinkly, Liverpudlian slappers debating the merits of the €10 three course menu, a couple of American students discussing the importance of the accuracy of GPS measurements when hiking (yawn) and trying to sound intelligent by speaking very loudly, another lanky American student who sidled off to a corner to toke on something or other (and is now dozing…) and a couple of Australian lesbians with matching orange towels and zebra-patterned two-piece bikinis. Ah…the petri-dish the Camino brings together.
The next door neighbours are barnyard animals.
Photos speak better than I can. I prefer the barnyard animals to present human company. They look better, say less and seem altogether more intelligent.
The communal dinner is at 1930, which is way too late for me, so I had garlic soup and a main course of poached hake for lunch. Both were delightful.
Breakfast is also way too late for me at 0700 so mine will be water and a large banana until I make the first coffee stop, hopefully Villafranca Montes de Oca, +12km and ETA 0800 with an 0500 departure. That’s the plan – as slick as KY up the Hershey Highway (metaphorically, that is).