Day 13: Santo Domingo to Belorado

Today we walked 14.2 miles (22.9 km) in 8 hours with a couple of breaks.

We started the morning in Santo Domingo about 8am and grabbed a couple of things for a makeshift walking breakfast as we made our way out of town. About an hour later we came into the town of Grañon and found a gathering of pilgrims at a little store with tables and chairs outside, so we sat down and had the rest of our breakfast while Ted & Lisa went in search of coffee.

After about half an hour back on the trail, we left the region of “La Rioja” and entered “Castilla y Leon”, with a nice big border sign and map of the Camino to mark the location.

We went through two more “ghost towns” today, so lunch got changed to a picnic in a park, with all the various snacks everyone was carrying laid out on the table. We’re basically walking grocery stores at times so nobody went hungry.

After a seemingly endless gravel road running parallel to the highway, we finally made it to the town of Belorado, with a population of about 2,100. I got a slight sunburn today, and the shorts and sunglasses were definitely in use, so we’re thankfully already seeing a big improvement in the weather over last year. I guess I’ll need to break out the sunscreen tomorrow though.

We were pretty tired after yesterday so I wasn’t sure how we’d all feel today, but we walked further and ended the day feeling slightly better than yesterday.

T&L found a good place for tonight’s dinner while I was showering and washing clothes (and Kathey was napping) so we’ll be heading out soon since we’re all pretty hungry.

Enjoy the photos from today!

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Red poppies in the foreground, white and purple poppies in the field:
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A note left hanging next to a yellow arrow from pilgrims for their friend:
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Drying socks on the walking clothesline:
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Belorado:
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Our albergue tonight: Cuatro Cantones:
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