Taking very tentative steps because of our blisters, we set off at 0700 hrs. Ahead were about six hours of walking, which turned into seven as we had to stop more often than we normally do. The terrain was quite varied today - a bit of a roller-coaster - up and down hills! Also a lot of trees for a change.
After 14 kms we came across the village of Bercianos de Valverde, hoping to be able to stop for a beer. Unfortunately we were out of luck - the village appeared totally deserted, and we had no option but to carry on to our next village Santa Croya de tera some 7 kms away. The path here went through some beautiful woods with plenty of shade, but so full of flies and mosquitoes that we had to resort to our mosquito repellent for the first time on this trip.
The rest of the walk passed uneventfully, with frequent stops (I must stop moaning about my blisters - my father would have said "Just grit your teeth and keep going and shut up!" In the end that's exactly what I did!
We arrived at our destination just in time for lunch. Lunch, you say? There is no restaurant in the village and the bars don't serve food - would you believe our luck. If we still had Katrin with us she would have warned us about this and we would have bought something yesterday to have for lunch today. Here I stopped to chat to a dear old lady of 88 to complain about the lack of restaurants.
As it was I had to use all my charm to convince the bar-lady's daughter to cook us a fry-up of eggs, pork and chorizo (which cost us a bomb!) It was great and we enjoyed it. We wanted something hot in particular because for the last few days we have been travelling with our S. Korean 23 year-old friend HyeRyeong Yu ( I told you it was unpronounceable!) who has not been feeling very well. She only ever eats cheese sandwiches and oranges so we thought it was about time she had something hot. She speaks very little Spanish and is a bit shy so we suspect that part of the problemn is that she doesn't know how to ask for things in Spanish. Anyway she ate the lot and we had to tell her how to ask for this again in Spanish! It seems our plan worked.
This little village which we entered via a bridge over the river Tera is famous for its church which boasts the earliest known statue of St James, Pilgrim, dating from the 12th Century and which is the symbol of the Via de La Plata, Camino Sanabres, part of the Camino de Santiago.
Tomorrow we have our customary live interview with Brooklands FM Radio (a recording of which you can hear on our blog) at 11.30 a.m. UK time. We have a tough day ahead of us climbing to 2700 feet - dare I say anything about our feet? No, everything will be fine.
A final word to two of our fellow travellers, Roberto and Lisa from Italy who very kindly donated £50 to our chosen charities. They were a day behind us but now we have lost total track of them. Roberto, if you read this please send me your email so that we can keep in touch. Similarly our Swedish friends, Johan and Karin. A reminder that our email is look4gomez@gmail.com
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