(Sahagun to Reliegos: 30.8 km, 8 hours with 1 hr & 55 min breaks; 40,530 steps, plus 2240 later)

Luke 15:11-31
v. 20b “But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.”

Shortly into our walk today we discovered we had miscalculated the milage. Instead of 23.9 kilometers to our planned stop it was closer to 31, a distance we never intended to walk in one day. And it wasn’t like we could stop sooner because we’d already sent our packs ahead to the selected town. Whoops. This would be a long walk, and on still-blistered feet. “We can do this,” we said to each other confidently. “We can do this.” Like prodigals returning from a far country we set off, praying that the Father would see us from “a long way off” and with compassion strengthen us all the way in. And he did.  With his gifts of grapes, potato chips, a perfect picnic spot, a ripe peach, we walked through all those kilometers and were home before we knew it. Thank you, Lord, for your great compassion for your wandering children. Thank you for meeting us right where we need it.

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We ate breakfast in our room, yogurt and juice boxes from the grocery store and delicious pastries I bought yesterday made by the bakery lady’s sister–pastry squares with the sides folded in to contain the custard and fruit. At 8:10 we posed by yet another sign saying it was the center of the Camino.

At 8:15 we took a picture by one more ancient bridge, this one medieval on Roman foundations.

Soon we were walking on a flat senda parallel to the autopista and a high speed train line.

We passed through little brick and adobe towns scraped together haphazardly on the meseta, stopping in Bercianos del Real Camino (these town names are bigger than the towns) for sustenance and a WC in which all the pilgrim ladies were fiddling with the lock trying to get it to work and only I lifted up my eyes and spied the sliding lock above.

As we passed more fields, local ladies on bikes who had just picked something handed a bundle to Aussie pilgrims walking in front of us. When we caught up to the Aussies they shared a huge cluster of sweet just-picked grapes with us.

We kept up our pace. Irrigation canals full of water flowing swift and clear cut through the fields. Another town, another tiny bar–looking for the WC. Maurice bought a Powerade and the barista served it with a pile of spicy potato chips, which fortified us while we searched for a tienda for lunch supplies. Only thirteen km to go.

Looking for a grocery store in El Burgo Ranero

Out into the wilderness we went again. Just when we needed it a picnic area appeared with solid tables in the shade. In our bag we had bread, cheese, ham, hummus, chocolate, peanuts, fruit and cookies–a real feast in a perfect picnic spot with no one else around except an occasional passing car on the country lane.

After lunch we walked in and out of shade along the senda lined with young poplars. Lizards scuttled between the dusty path and its brushy edge while dragonflies darted low. All around us bronzed fields stretched far and flat to violet mountains and blue sky; this was what I expected the meseta to look like.

At 3:00 we had a ten-minute stop at another shaded picnic table to eat a peach. “Start the music!” I said to Maurice. “I wonder how the old folks are at home,” sang Mac Wiseman. Hmm. I wonder why the old folks aren’t at home. “I know who goes before me, I know who stands behind,” sang Chris Tomlin. “The God of Angel Armies is always by my side.” “One foot in front of the other. Take one step and then take another,” encouraged George Strait. “Little by little gets a whole lot further.” “My life is in you, Lord, my hope is in you, Lord, my strength is in you, Lord, in you, in you!”

At 4:10 we got to the Albergue Gil in Reliegos. We were exhausted. We got the last two bunks, top ones, in a room with Regular Canadian Tom (talkative and friendly), his wife Flora, her sister Helen and Theresa from Albuquerque.

It was a very little town, and dead. We wandered around until we found a restaurant–La Parada, a tiny square room with four tables, a bar and a TV. While we were eating our delicious ensalada mixta, French-Canadian Tom appeared; he was staying upstairs. Back at the room, one of the women took pity on Maurice’s fatigue and his worry about falling out of the bunk on his way to the bathroom in the middle of the night and offered him her bottom bunk instead. He gratefully accepted. We all slept soundly.

Welcoming bar in Reliegos

Have you ever seen this number on your daily pedometer? (It’s still set on east coast time, so it still had another sixteen minutes of walking before it changed over.)