Camino Day 12: Azofra to Granon

Today, I was just plain miserable. The temperature dropped below freezing last night, and we woke to frost on the ground. I lingered over breakfast, hoping it would warm up, but it was still brisk when we finally hit the road at 9:30-- our latest start yet. I started feeling sick just over an hour into our 13.8 mile walk, and I only felt worse as the day went on. We walked through Ciruena, a depressingly empty ghost town where every one of the brutalist cement apartment blocks was empty and for sale. Next was Santo Domingo de la Calzada, with smelly factories on one edge of town and sad, smelly barns on the other. In the middle of town the much vaunted church of Santo Domingo-- famous for a qaint if sexist legend about a naughty innkeeper's daughter and a chaste pilgrim boy, and the chickens still housed in their honor--, felt more like a museum and circus than a place of worship. You could even have your picture taken as a monk holding those famous chickens-- one of those painted wood boards with the face cut out. Despite much looking forward to it, we were so put off by the feeling of the place, we elected to walk right past it.

I arrived in Granon for the night exhausted and feeling very sick. The one comfort of the day was our night's lodging: a small and cozy attic space tucked into the side of a big, stone parish church. Run by a group of kindly volunteers, it is the type of place where everyone helps to make a communal dinner, and pilgrims play music for each other by the wood stove. Unfortunately, I was too sick to enjoy any of it, and spent the entirety of our time there with earplugs in, sleeping on mat on the wood floor under the eves. Tomorrow, we will have to rest and revcover, as I'm afraid I have the flu.