Warm in my cocoon in the cabin I crept one hand out into the cold and looked at my phone. 4:50. In 10 minutes we should be getting up and getting moving. I thought about the day ahead – 25 kilometres, starting with a 5 km hike up and down a very steep hill. We weren’t sure where we could get food and water along the way. I wasn’t looking forward to it one little bit. Putting off the inevitable I made an executive decision to sleep in for another hour.
All to soon we were up and on our way
The first couple of kms were flat but ahead of us the track wound it’s way up the mountain.

D2 waited patiently while I persuaded my feet and legs to start moving.
We tackle the hills quite differently, D2 takes off with great determination that she is going to make it to the top in as short a time as possible. Whereas I do the slow and steady thing, determined to just make it. We knew there were no towns until the hill, up and down, was conquered and all the way up I thought of the vans that miraculously appeared early on in the trek. And lo, my dreams were answered, there at the very top a Spanish angel dispensing coffee and fruit. I found D2 in a hut and we read all the msgs left by pilgrims past

And having got to the top, it was time to go down, with my knee screaming at me the whole way

With the hill behind us we headed off into thankfully flat countryside that put me in mind of Oklahoma…..”when the waving wheat, can sure smell
sweet”

After morning tea, orange juice and inexplicably a sickly sweet packaged apple pastry, we were on the way again. I amused myself singing as many Oklahoma songs as I could think of, including Oh What a Beautiful Morning……….”oh what a beautiful day, I’ve got a beautiful feeling, everything’s going my way”
And it did, the afternoon brought a lovely walk past some interesting artwork, along a canal into Fromista, 25 kms!

D2 had already booked into our lodgings for the night, Hotel Doña Mayor, and unbelievably neither of us retired for a nap. We wandered around downtown Fromista, stopping for a sangria. D2 had a hamburger and I really enjoyed a bowl of garlic and bean soup.

There appeared to have been some sort of competition in town as there were lots of men and women wearing brightly coloured overalls walking around town. I think the yellow team won because they were dancing down the street wearing white scarves,accompanied by a band, drinking beer and sounding very happy. Even the statue wore a white scarf.
The green team, not wearing white scarves, bought beer and hamburgers and didn’t look anywhere near as happy as the yellow team.

My Oklahoma kinda day has been my best day yet!

We only had 20km to walk today, so we slept in until 6:00am, enjoyed the savoury pastry we had bought from the most gorgeous panaderia the night before, and headed off into the breaking dawn. We were accompanied along the river walk out of town by an exuberant and somewhat inebriated young Spaniard who was keen to practise his English. He was quite entertaining but eventually we had to assure him his English was excellent, bid him adios and hit the trek in ernest.
The track was flat and comfortable, and we made good time through the verdant pastures, striding purposefully past the sign to the first town, over a bridge and into the second town, half way by 9:30.

Once again the word on the trek was accommodation might be scarce in the next town so after fresh orange juice and a delicious apple and cream tart for morning tea, D2 headed off to see what she could find.
There are many cyclists doing the Camino and they were plentiful today, you can hear the sound of their tyres on the stones and their shouts of “Buen Camino” as they whizz past. I enjoyed the next couple of hours accompanied by the soundtrack of Les Mis, until negotiating the best path through a stony patch, I didn’t hear the whir of tyres, and almost stepped into the path of a passing cyclist. I couldn’t be sure, but I don’t think the words he said were wishing me a good trek!
The trek worked its way steadily up a hill, and in good time, with feet and legs holding out well, there I was standing on top of a steep descent into the town of Honillas.

D2 was waiting for me at the bridge leading into the town with the good news that she had found us a private room with its own bathroom. Hooray!
This news, however, was tempered by the discovery that Gasp! Horror! There was no phone service to the town because of the valley, and there was no wi-fi. We were cut off from the world!!

In case you are confused I took this the next morning!
We made our way to Casa de Albuerto which was all that D2 promised and more. There was a delightful purple room with pink and blue patchwork quilt, a huge shower, a huge fridge with bread, cheese and ham for free, drinks including beer for €1, and best of all, little packets of real butter. While D2 snuggled under the patchwork quilt for a snooze, I sat out in the rustic courtyard with a beer and my Kindle and read. Absolute bliss.

In the late afternoon we went for a walk through the quaint little town.

Along the streets walked people looking at their phones in puzzlement, then looking up into the sky as if they were looking for a connection somewhere (or perhaps they were looking for a line to the Royal Telephone?)
Pilgrims struggling in late were knocking on doors of albergues with “full” signs and pleading for space on a floor to sleep, and I was grateful for our room, and that the only challenge for the day was lack of phone service and internet!

A delicious breakfast from our gracious host at Albergue Waslalal and we were on our way. 24 kms with a big hill to tackle, up and down, at 12 kms, and the threat of rain ahead. So it was heads down and tails up!
As the day gradually came alive, so did the green hills, gorgeous as ever, and I spent the first hour thinking of different words for green, and fields, and hills, and all the different combinations so that my descriptions, dear reader, in the following days would not become dull and repetitive (any suggestions would be gratefully received!)

This led me to thinking about songs with green hills or fields in the lyrics. I remembered a song about a Scottish soldier I learnt at primary school which vaguely stirred memories of green hills. I spent the next hour firstly humming, then adding la-las and words, until I had a reasonable version of the very sad tale of a Scottish soldier who went to battle in green fields in other lands. But they were not his green fields, and as he lay dying he bad his piper to pipe him home to his own green fields. I thought the green fields might have been Spain but when I checked on my phone later they were the green fields of Tyrol (ah, we may be pilgrims, but we still have the internet) All in all it was an enjoyable morning’s walk
For those interested here is a link to the lyrics A Scottish Soldier

I seemed to have finally found the right combination of socks, blister pads and hikers wool, so feet and legs held out well and within three hours we were at the halfway point. Fortified by a chorizo sandwich and orange juice we tackled ‘the hill’

The word on the Camino was that there may not be room for everyone in the Municipal Albergue so D2 set off ahead to makes sure we secured a bed. Despite the wide and quite comfortable track, my progress up the hill was slow, and about halfway up my calf began to whine, and grumble, and complain until I had to speak to it quite firmly and tell it that it didn’t matter how much it complained we had to keep going if we wanted a bed for the night! It settled down to a monotonous whinge and I made it to the top, and on to the next town where D2 had secured us a beds.

To say the accommodation was basic is being kind – large cramped dormitories, freezing cold tiles on the floor,a shower cubicle with no bench to put anything or hooks to hang anything, and it appeared there was nothing to buy to eat except a sandwich.
We found a sign that said “Tourists demand, pilgrims are thankful” and for a time we struggled a bit with that. However, true pilgrims that we are we came up with a list. We were grateful the water was hot and the shower cubicles had doors, that we found somewhere to eat that served Morcilla, Spanish blood sausage, with eggs, bacon or salad. Morcilla, by the way, is truly delicious! And most of all I was thankful D2 had got me a bottom bunk, because there were no ladders to the top bunk!