Day 10 - Grañón to Villafranca Montes de Oca

The route today took me through Redecilla del Camino, Castildelgado, Viloria de la Rioja, Villamayor del Rio, Belorado, Tosantos, Villambistia, and Espinosa del Camino. The towns seem a little closer together now as I travel down mostly farm roads between fields. Again today, I put on some extra distance in order to make the walk to Burgos a breeze so that I would have time to kick around.

Last night, I stayed in the belltower of the 14th century church in Grañón. What an amazing place to stay (even though the bells rang all night from what I could tell). The dinner was a group dinner that was cooked by Marco and Martini, the recently married couple from Italy doing El Camino for their honeymoon. It was delicious. After dinner, the hospitalero (he only speaks Spanish) motioned me through a door marked "Do not enter." It turned out to be a back entrance to the choir loft of the church where the altar was lit and the old wooden seats built into the choir loft were surrounded by lit candles. Most of us ended up being rounded up there. No, it wasn´t the fabled annual sacrifice of a pilgrim (just kidding). It was an evening prayer. Another hospitalero was playing the guitar and singing hymns in Spanish. She (Marta) has an amazing voice. The whole experience was really amazing and so far the best albergue I've stayed at on El Camino.

Contrast this with the night before in Najera...somebody swiped my sunglasses off my bed while I was at dinner, the showers were frigid, and there were no toilet seats (yeah...I have no explanation for this one...but you try a power squat after walking for more than 30 km that day). This one and the one in the church were both donativo, or by donation only. Take a guess which place got the (much) bigger donation! Unfortunately for the place in Najera, it's a bad Catch-22. If it's bad, nobody gives money. But without money, they can't make it better (i.e. buy toilet seats!)

On I walk.