Well, today we finished the Camino Madrid
portion of our pilgrimage, and I feel the ending was entirely perfect - the
albergues and bars were 'cerrado' right up until the very end.
Nonetheless, it was a beautiful walk, the weather was gorgeous, and it was a
phenomenal wildlife day.
We left the albergue just as the sun was rising, being careful not to wake the
hospitaleros, who were out late last night. We made our way to the centre
of town, hoping to find breakfast, but nothing was open yet, and there were no
signs that anything was about to open in the near future. Once again, we
set off down the trail with empty bellies, hoping to find breakfast somewhere
along the way.
We followed the winding red dirt trail out into rolling fields of brown,
green, and yellow. The slanting golden rays of the rising sun were
illuminating the young green crops and creating curving shadows across the
rolling hills. The sky was a clear blue, the air was cool and still, and
the only sounds were those of birds singing. Looking back we could see
Villalon de Campos behind us. It was a beautiful morning.
We cruised through the peaceful morning, stopping frequently to watch and
photograph the birds. Around 8 km into our hike we came to the tiny
village of Fontihoyuelo. Our arrival was ungracious - through a farm
whose large and odoriferous manure pile had escaped onto the trail, creating a
short section of boot swallowing muck. At first I worried that the
scruffy dog lying in the mess was dead, but it turned out to be merely
lethargic. An equally depressed looking cat watched us as we passed the
barn, where someone inside was angrily yelling and banging around.
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As we crested the hill and descended into the rest of town conditions improved
slightly, and a beautiful view opened up in front of us, revealing a snow
covered mountain range beyond rolling green fields. As our guidebook
suggested, this town offered no amenities for hungry hikers. We stopped
at a bench outside the church and for the second day in a row contented
ourselves with a few slices of baguette and some jam we had purchased in
Villalon de Campos.
We continued our hike across the meseta, struck by the incredible beauty of the
landscape around us. Conicle trees and umbrella conifers dotted the
landscape of green fields through which our red track snaked. In the
distance tall snow covered mountains loomed.
We were constantly entertained by the enormous wild turkeys dotting the fields
around us. The males posed on hills and ridges, trying their best to
attract the girls, while others faced off against each other, never flinching.
Around 11 am we arrived in Santervez de Campos, where we had been hoping to
stay last night, but had never gotten an answer from the albergue. The
trail once again seemed to weave around the edges of town, but we chose to
climb the steep hill to the Ponce de Leon Museum, which is also the location of
the Albergue.
The museum was closed, as was the albergue, but we stopped to admire the bronze
statue of Ponze de Leon and read about his achievements. Juan Ponce de
Leon was a Spanish explorer and conquistador who was born in 1474 in Santervás
de Campos and went on to become leader of the first official European
expedition to Florida. He later served as the first governor of Puerto
Rico. Interestingly, he first came to America as a 'gentleman volunteer'
with Christopher Columbus' second expedition in 1493.
After walking past the museum we searched for an open bar or café and came up
empty, so we walked to the edge of town and took a break at a group of picnic
tables along the Camino. We were in a tiny park shaded by trees, just at
the edge of the road. As we took a break we watched a group of over a dozen
swallows collecting mud from a puddle in the dirt road.
One group dragged
their beaks back and forth in the mud, flying off with huge clumps of sticky,
heavy mud entirely covering their bills. The other group arrived with
small bundles of sticks in their beaks which they coated with mud before flying
off. It must be nest building day!
Before setting off we refilled our water bottles at the nearby fountain and
came across a small ditch in which Sean spotted a beautiful frog with a bright
green stripe down his back.
At this point we had reached the suggested end of this stage of Camino Madrid,
but since it was still relatively early and we'd had no success in reaching the
albergue, we continued on. It was another 8 km across relatively flat, open
fields to the next tiny town of Arnillas de Valderaduey. This town seemed
to be decomposing. Piles of bricks, broken roof tiles, and assorted
debris formed heaps among the weeds at the edge of town. The bricks of
the adobe walls were melting and falling down, and those of the church tower
and walls were sloping and bowing. It seemed like the place was slowly
sinking into the earth.
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After quickly making our way through town we crossed a small footbridge and
then found ourselves following a dirt track down the side of a small
canal. It was so full of life that our pace dramatically slowed
down. Birds flitted in and out among the trees, and frogs could be heard
calling down by the water. Perhaps best of all, a small deer scampered ahead
of us through the trees before crossing the canal with a huge crash and
splash. It was magical, and Sean ended up photographing several new bird
species.
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Around 2:30 pm we came to the final town on the Camino Madrid, where we had
hoped to stay for the night. Grajal de Campos boasts not one but two
castles, the Church of San Miguel, with its Mudejár architecture, and a colonnaded central Plaza Major. The albergue is in one of the castilles,
and we had hoped to stay there. Unbeknownst to us, on Tuesdays the
albergue is only open until 3:00pm. Although we arrived at 2:30 pm,
there was no one there, the door was locked, and no one answered either of the phone numbers on the
door. We went to the local bar and had a cold cerveza, waiting to see if
we could get a response. We called the numbers listed three times more in
the next half hour, with no answer. The town hall was listed as opening again
at 4:00 pm, so we waited to see if anyone would arrive who could let us
in. Those at the local bar laughed at our attempts to get in as if we were
making some kind of joke. By 4:45 pm, sitting at the door to the albergue and town hall with no one there or showing up, we simply gave up and decided to
walk the final long kilometers to Sahagun.
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Our journey along the Camino Madrid has been incredibly beautiful, but since
the beginning it has been plagued by holidays, regional days off, temperamental hospitalerios, and closures. To me it felt entirely
fitting that each albergue in the final kilometres remained cerrado until the very end. When we finally
entered Sahagun we learned that the place to get credentials for the Camino
Madrid is now permanently closed as well - how else could this end? Even the volunteers at the central albergue in Sahagun were stunned to discover that there was a route that came from Madrid.
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When we walked into Sahagun it didn't look even remotely how we remembered it
when we passed through on our walk along the Camino Frances in
2016. We saw it with new eyes and from a new perspective. On one
hand we very much enjoyed finding food for the first time in several days, finding
accommodations that were open, and hearing English spoken around us by other
pilgrims. On the other hand, the prevalence of shells, bars and streets named
for peregrinos, as well as the many references to the Camino made us feel a little
like we'd left Spain and Spanish culture behind and entered into a pilgrim
corridor built more for tourism than reflection. I guess the next few days will give us a better understanding
of what the Camino Frances is and has become.
Distance: 46 km