iggirice Camino: Day 17 - Castrojeriz to Fromista

This a long day for us going 26 km. It is bad day for me to have a bad sleep the night before. The feet were pounding rather than bouncing along the trail.

Getting away from Castrojeriz, we went uphill to the mesa and then downhill, all on concrete pavement. I don't think my knees like that. We stopped at Itero de la Vega. Nothing much available though. We were then onto a 8 km stretch of gravel and sand. Crunch, crunch, crunch... Like the documentary by one pilgrim on YouTube. Gigi sped away on us. I was trying to keep pace with Winnie until she had to shed a layer. I tried to keep in contact with Gigi if you can call 300 m contact. Then the sun came out. There was no one close enough to pull out my sun hat from my backpack so I had to put on the cap of my jacket. It was a choice between sun-burned ears or steamed brain. Then the sun was gone and the wind whipped up. Better not be a cold front that would bring rain or thunderstorm. No, there were clouds but they certainly were not rain clouds so we were safe. Gigi stopped and waited for me. No. She was just checking to make sure we were still there. She kept going. Wait. She stopped to take a picture. But then she kept going. I gained 10 m. Crunch, crunch, crunch... She stopped to take a video of the poppies. That was going to take some time. I also stopped but only for a snap on my phone. She was taking another picture and I passed her. I won! Oh, it is not a race. It did give me some psychological push to get through this stretch.

At Boadiilla del Camino, we had a good lunch and met the hospitalero who lived in London, Ontario for a while. What a small world.

Arrived safely in Fromista before 2 pm. I had emailed a request for reservation and they finally confirmed it yesterday. Today is Sunday though so nothing is open other than the restaurants.

Another adventure in pilgrim menu. We chose to go to el Apostol for dinner. We arrived early and used the time to decipher the choices listed in Spanish. It took us a while because unlike the usual sopa, ensalada, lomo, pollo, atun and merluza, we were looking at a list of 20 items from which we can only figure out two or three. After some frustration, we asked one of the servers whether there is an English menu. He said no but did try to help us. His description of the menu items are: 1st plate: soup, soup, rice, fish, fish, pork, fish, fish, fish, fish; 2nd plate: beef, beef, beef, beef, pork, beef, fish, fish, fish, fish. After a lot of Google Translate, we finally figured out: seafood soup, bean in marinera sauce, mushroom risotto, shrimp, prawn, ham, shrimp, scallop, scallop and clam for the 1st plate; lamb, lamb, beef, pork, beef, beef, squid, cod, hake and monkfish for the 2nd plate. Finally we got to sit down and the server does not know English either. We ordered using our new found knowledge and found that all the tables are using Google Translate. Foods came out of the kitchen, he announced the food and we had no idea what it was and just grabbed it so we can figure out later among ourselves. Despite all that, the foods are absolutely fantastic and well worth the slightly higher price of 15€. Desserts are not listed in the menu. After he told us in Spanish, we simply said bring us 4 different ones. And it worked. Good food and good entertainment because it was so funny.