Day 17 - Fromista to Carrión de los Condes - 20km

There are two parallel routes most of the way to Carrión from Fromista, one along the road and one following the river. I meant to take the second option as it would have been pleasanter but somehow I missed the yellow arrows and ended up on the road. The track by the road is what is known as a "senda" or "pilgrim autopista". They are usually pebbly underfoot, with no shade and rather boring, and of course you have traffic passing you all the time. What could have been a nice easy day´s walk was just a long very hot trudge. I stopped in a rest area to eat a bag of cherries for breakfast and later took another couple of breaks in what little shade there was just to try and cool off a bit.

The last time I stopped I was standing under a tree as there was nowhere to sit. I was drinking some water when I suddenly noticed dozens of little caterpillars were abseiling down from the tree onto me and my rucksack which was lying up against the trunk. My presence must have triggered something off as there were loads of them all hanging from fine silken threads. It took ages to makes sure I didn´t have any stowaways before I set off again.

The albergue in Carrión was a parochial one and I was received by a nun who gave me some refreshing tea when I arrived just after midday. I went out for a bite to eat and was lucky enough to find a good little photographers shop just over the road from the albergue. I had been worrying about where to buy a memory stick for my camera as I was running out of space and having to ration the number of photos I took. I thought I´d have to wait until I reached a larger town or city as I never expected to find a shop with such a knowledgeable owner in such a small place.

While I was out I came across my tall friend Ursula who was looking for the albergue so I showed her the way there. I still hadn´t eaten so I went out again then came back and shared a washing machine with Ursula. You don´t usually have enough washing to fill a machine on your own and this is a good way to keep down costs. All this faffing about meant a lot of other people had arrived in the meantime and when I went for my shower all the hot water had gone. Even though it was a hot day I didn´t enjoy my cold wash and was in and out very quickly!

Among the pilgrims who had arrived was Nola from New Zealand, a woman about my age, who was limping badly due to a painful leg and whom I´d met in Hontanas. We later went shopping and had dinner together in the kitchen, also joined by an Australian called John who was on his third Camino. Marcel, the German chap with bad feet turned up too so we were quite an international little group. Later in the evening three nuns held a pilgrim blessing which was very lovely and moving. All the pilgrims gathered and sat on the floor or stairs while one of the nuns addressed us in Spanish about the history and meaning of the pilgrimage while a Peruvian nun translated into English. Then the third nun played a guitar and sang and we all joined in. The singer had a sweet face and voice and was one of those people whose goodness shines out of them. We were then each given a paper star and blessed individually. I think it made the evening very special to all those present and gave some meaning to what we were doing.