After a warm, humid night in a packed 20 bed hostel room, punctuated by nocturnal utterances from my roommates, I'm awake at 4am. I try to sleep for an hour but I'm out of the hostel just after 5, alone, passing by locals still enjoying the fiesta. This is my second to last day on the Camino, and the scenery has been a little disappointing for the last few days.
Today was a 'rest' day with only 3 hours walking. I planned a lie in, but I'm in the habit of waking up early, so I was awake before 5. The church bells in the village we're staying in go off on the hour through the night, and the locals party late. Everything seems geared to late night life here, a side effect of hot days and balmy nights.
Another long day today, but temperatures have cooled down somewhat, and they'll be positively fresh tomorrow. We arrive in Grañón around midday, and investigate the donativo albergue. There's three types of hostels on the Camino: municipal, parochial and private. Municipal (or multiprinciple as my walking buddy calls them) are fairly basic, very affordable (€6-10) hostels run by the local council, mostly quite clean, but basic and can be a bit noisy.
Peak temps today were 40C at around 5pm, and unlike yesterday, no cloud cover, so another early start to beat the heat. Fortunately, this is the last of the heatwave, and tomorrow will be relatively cooler. I'd heard some folks complain about sections of the Camino being a bit ugly, and for the first week, I think it has been mostly beautiful with occasional ugliness. Some of those areas have been quite spectacularly ugly, but thankfully short.
The penultimate day of the hot weather today. We calculate around 6 hours of walking, plus breaks, so 7 in total. 6 am wake up is planned. I'm covered in sweat sleeping all night without a breeze, so I'm awake by the time the first alarm goes off at 450am, and getting ready shortly afterwards, despite the general agreement for six.
Things are heating up, a heatwave is blasting through northern Spain right now. But we only have four hours walking to do today. We set off at 715 and take the forest route when presented. Before the path splits, there's a wine fountain for pilgrims.