Day 10 – just call me Moses.

Renay Weir
Sep 12, 2017
5 min read

Day 10 – Santo Domingo to Villamayor del Río- 6.5 hours, 20km

What a day! Today we led the masses astray. Jess and i thought today, instead of waiting round for everyone to get ready in the morn, we’d just take off at 630am. So we did. Id suprisingly had a good night sleep despite the snoring of one man which can only be described as sounding like a wild boar being attacked by a grizzly bear with the occassional whistle of a dying budgie. Seriously the noises from one man?! And this was through my ear plugs!

We walked out of town and tried following the yellow arrows but in the pitch black things get tough. Especially cause we just couldnt even be bothered getting our head torch out. Im not sure whether it was Jess’s theory on roosters (she swears the albergue owners shine torches in the roosters eyes so that they crow and wake us up) or whether it was cause i was so engrossed with my massive juicy 5c nectarine, that i saw a sign but took the low road instead of the high road. Woops. What did that mean… 50 other pilgrims saw me go that way so they followed. Like a pack of sheep! We soon got overtaken by pretty much most them with their head torches on all saying ‘buen camino’, ‘buena dias!’, all so happy and energetic for 630am. We followed this road for a good 30 minutes so roughly 2.5kms. When all of a sudden we see a police car come flying along a parralel road lights and sirens on and then stops to cut us all off at an intersection. Murmurs started ‘is it a random visa check?, was their a murder?, then i got a tiny bit worried as helmut has been on to me for days about getting rid of all my codeine as theyre illegal here. Anyways it was none of them. We’d gone the wrong way! Ohhh the masses werent happy. I heard one lady go ‘WHO was the leader, who were we following?!!’ Jess and i coyly slink back into the crowd, with the biggest grins on our face trying so hard not to laugh. All whilst knowing exactly who made the wrong call. We pissed (language i know but this is the only word that accuratly describes) a lot of people off this morning. we had sent people on a 1 hour 4km additional walk (making most of their days a 30km day now). But did jess and i care? Nope! We laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed. It meant a chat with 2 good looking police men, a few selfies with the cops, who co-incidently loved us as much as we them, and so i dare say the selfie the cop tooks gonna be hanging on their station wall. We chatted to them for a bit, they offered to drive us to Santiago, We’d just prefer they drove us to the neareast coffee stop but instead they kept on driving ahead and stopping at every intersection to point us down the right path. They probably thought those crazy australians! But seriously there would hve been mutany if those people found out it was us. We finally made it back to the right path at about 7:50am. So we’d been on the road an hour 20 and really only 20mins max out of the town we started from. That kept us amused for most of the walk today. We decided today that as we were to be passing through villages every 3-5kms. We’d take our time and try the coffees as we pass through. The first village we stopped at a cafe along with everyone else. And you could here people talking about how someone sent them down the wrong way. We’d look at each other biting our tongues so we didnt laugh. It was absolutely freezing today and very windy! We had all layers, down jacket on, even socks for gloves (practical!) But spain come on 40 degrees one day and 5 the next! Jess’ blister over half her foot is now an open wound so she’d been on the hunt for days for betadine or antiseptic cream but could we find some. No. We were strolling through this really old village when we spot a pharmacy vending machine! Amazing! But was there antiseptic? Nope. As we were trying to decipher what the items were in spanish Megan and Dennis (our south african doctors turn up). Guess who had betadine… And 2 tubes so they gave one to jess so she was sorted. Dennis also with a blister says, ‘have you seen that wool you can get which helps blisters?! I saw an australian had it but you cant get it anywhere!’. I just pipe up ‘i have some!’ So here we have a medical trade off in the middle of the street and jess and dennis attend to their blisters. The camino provides! We carried on pretty slowly today through the super dry, brown fields. Theres no vineyards any more, more crops and sunflower fields. I love how comfortable you can become with someone so quickly. We were taking a selfie in the street when jess pipes up – ‘your hairs looking great today, you seen it?’ Me – ‘haha nah’ jess ‘you look like a bloody pineapple’. Me: ‘jess my hair is the least of my worries.’

Today, Good chats. Always good chats. We talked about our grandparents, how they care for us yet dont want to be a bother to us. I was telling jess about my nan and how she would never complain, how id sit with her at the nursing home, singing, praying together. And how nan was always concerned for all the other old people around her, it was never about her.

Then jess is determined to get me into reading so we had book chat and so now i have a billion recommendations.

We’d no sooner walked our 20km. We decided to stop at an albergue a bit out of the way and away from the main stream of people. Walking down the country road, it had crossed our mind that it was very wolf creek like and we were the only ones around. jess’s advice – we choose beds furtherest from the door so we’re not murdered first. But then jess quips ‘if you snore i will cut you!’. ‘Strayans. The albergue we are at is really someones farm. Theirs huge vegie gardens, beautiful grass back yard looking over the fields. Its so rustic. We did our washing, then walked back to the one place in town you can eat. But what a place. Its famous for its air dried meats and sausages. So of course we had to have a jamon & queso bocadillo, and a glass of rosè goes without saying. Specially at 1 euro a.glass. The chef was this big grumpy old man. We sat at the counter watching him, all the pigs legs and meats hanging drying above us. He did not crack one smile the 2 hrs we were there. He was bossing the staff around. One of the young guy waiters was even doing the ‘im a kill him’ action behind his back to us. We laughed and said we know. After a good feed we strolled back down the road and here we are in bed at 4pm. And weve said goodnight. So if i can get 12 hours of sleep tonight, without being murdered, this will be bliss. R x