Day 50 Rio Negro del Puente - San Salvador de Palazuelo

POSTED A DAY LATE

Last night we visited the local Sanctuario de la Carballeda, where they have a statue of St James dating back to around the 12th or 13^th Century.  The church also had a stone niche where in the old days the locals used to leave unwanted children to be brought up by the priests.

This morning we decided to play it safe and have breakfast at the local bar as soon as it opened.  Our usual of coffee and toast with olive oil.  Suitably refreshed we set off at 0800hrs, heading for San Salvador de Palazuelo, via the villages of Mombuey, Valderemilla and Cernadilla.

The terrain was different today to that of previous days in that it was more like rocky scrubland (does that make sense?) and soft and sandy underfoot at least until Mombuey.  

There we bought some provisions for the day as we knew that there would be no more bars or shops for the rest of the day.  Mombuey has a 13^th Century church with a fortified tower, which was a stronghold of the Knights Templars.

Coming out of Mombuey we missed a right turn somewhere and ended up lost for about half an hour!  It was good to be lost for a change, more characteristic of the Gomez style! We soon picked up the scent again and were soon on our way along a very nice path through oak woods.  Plenty of shade!

A forced detour followed as they are building a new road right where the camino used to be.  As we went through the village of Cernadilla we saw a new flower for the very first time.  It is almost identical to a poppy but is bright orange in colour.  It seems to flourish in this area as we were able to photograph some as we approached our Albergue this afternoon.

We finally arrived at the Albergue in San Salvador de Palazuelo, at around 2.00p.m.just in time to grab the last two bunks!  Hye Ryeung and Sverre had beaten us to the first two!  This is a very small Albergue with only four bunks, but has very nice showers with hot water(!).  To the side of the Albergue is a water fountain with water coming straight from a spring, where we were able to fill our flasks.

San Salvador has no other facilities.  Come dinner time we found that Ana Maria and I were the only ones to have bought some food in Mombuey earlier that day  We improvised and with Sverre's help (he provided some very nice cheese) the four of us enjoyed a very nice salad "al fresco"

Tomorrow we hope to reach Puebla de Sanabria where we hope to find our replacement shoes/insoles.  Fingers crossed!