Swimming to San Juan

11 April 2013

Felt much better after a good sleep and three boxes of orange juice. We left Belorado in good form and breakfasted in Tosantos.

It was a sunny, if breezy still, walk through the countryside we´d come to expect – brilliant green farm fields in bowl-shaped valleys.

We lunched in a picturesque truck stop in Villafranca Montes de Oca. It was chilly, but still sunny, and we ate outside. Easily some of the best food I´ve had in Spain, and stupid cheap.

Also the first place I´ve seen a portrait of General Franco on the wall.

As we made the steep climb up the Montes de Oca, the wind picked up quite a bit. The forest at the top was eerie – all the trees black and bare, awaiting their spring colours. A note on my map says:

In medieval times, dense forest, wolves, and bandits made this one of the most difficult stretches of the Camino.

I can well believe it.

Instead of wolves and bandits, we got wind and rain. And what rain! I poured out upon us as if from a tap, and when the wind kicked up the raindrops stung like rubber bands.

Eamon had predictably gotten far ahead, so Viola and myself struggled dow the forest road in the deluge as best we could.

Despite the elements, we made good time.

The town of San Juan seems to consist of a single building, containing church, monastery, albergue, and bar.

The church is a Romanesque beauty, left more or less as it would have been in medieval times. I prayed a while at the saint´s tomb. The church was cold enough that I could see my breath, but it was dry.