Camino Day 25

So the elephant in the room today is that we are staying in a service station.

We have stayed in a wide range of places over the last month, but we always knew today was an issue. When the place you are staying uses a picture of a service station forecourt as its advertising image, you know what you are in for.

We had worried that the walk today would be ugly. It was supposed to be alongside a highway. For a little way it was, and in fact I took the photos below to show how much a photo is about perspective.

As it turned out the path was mostly beside a deserted road which paralleled the highway but was about 100m from it. The path was lined with chestnut trees and to its left was just fields. There were also lots of the lovely purple flower that has been our constant companion for the last 100km – Common Hickory, I believe. So it was not a bad walk at all.

El Burgo Ranero is a tiny place. As we walked in we saw a group harvesting vines and then down the street we saw them squeezing grapes using a trailer, a tarp, some pallets and what appeared to be a re-purposed bollard.

There are a couple of tiny alburgues and, just outside the town, our service station hotel. It’s a place filled with trucks and the walls vibrate from the engines. But it has hot water, so we are rating it more highly than last night.