Didn't sleep so well last night, cold coming on and maybe too much vino tinto. It was raining in annoying bursts out on the road, enough to get you damp before you got your coat on, then stop so you get steamy so take coat off, and then the rain would start again. Repeat. The first half of today's walk was through purgatorial Meseta mud. Perigrinos were floundering along with a kilo or so of clayey mud stuck to the bottom of each boot. Cleaning the mud off was fruitless as a new crust would form in a few steps. Luckily the muddy part finished before Hontanas, and the path from there was beautiful, winding along the side of a rocky valley covered in wild flowers and filled with bird song. It was like a reward for enduring the earlier section. The path then joins a minor sealed road and curves right through the ruins of the convent of San Anton, established in 12th century. The road goes through a vast arch still standing, and there is a delicately carved tympanium just sitting out there in the middle of nowhere.
Castrojeriz is a funny place. It is very old -originally Roman, and it straggles along the side of the mountain with quite a few adobe buildings, some eroding and some collapsed, and little streets winding away confusingly. Finding the pharmacia took the best part of an hour and required a few requests for assistance from the locals.
Staying in an idiosyncratic private albergue. Quite a few people packed in but i happened to get here just as the door opened and got the best bed, near the window.
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