Carrion de los Condes to Ledigos

Well I managed to do as planned and get up at 4am and out the gate with my pack on my back by 4.17am!
I was glad I had checked out the route out of the town in daylight so that I could walk relatively confidently to the outskirts, and also pleased that I had left so early because it really wasn´t untl 5am that I reached the darkness beyond the town.

It was lovely walking in the blackness with just a sliver of a moon and the strange northern sky and I liked stopping at dawn and turning to face east to watch the sunrise, because of course I am walking west.

For all that, nothing beats the southern skies for me. Nothing nearly as good as the ocean of stars that you can feel you can almost touch just outside of Hari Hari, in fact nothing to compare with walking down Peka Peka beach late at night either. Interesting- makes you appreciate all over again what we have in New Zealand.

I was also glad to be walking early because it was the most boring and exposed part of the camino to date. Dead straight, dead flat, wheat fields and no trees for as far as the eye could see. Not even broken by little towns. By the time I reached the first village (which would have had all of a dozen buildings in total) it was 9am!

I treated myself to a good long break there, took my boots off, had a couple of coffees and some garlicky peppers and read a bit.

Then decided to push on to Ledigos just another 6km away and still got here before noon. Today is not as hot which is a godsend for that particular walk but a shame because unexpectedly this albergue has a functioning swimming pool but I am just not quite tempted.