Second bar is always the best

It’s simple economics, really. As you come into a village on the Camino, the first bar always captures the desperate, the eager, the ones who just need a coffee. To be successful, the second bar has to offer something better than just a coffee and a tortilla.

Even though there is very little repeat traffic, there is enough of society around the Camino that a really good bar, (or a bad one) becomes known, and there is a real market available for that bar in the village of quality, even if it isn’t the first one that you get to. But you have to be strong, as a pilgrim. If you hold out for the second bar, there is a chance it might be closed. And the you might have to backtrack, and walk extra, which is a fate worse than death.

Today, after foolishly settling for the first bar in our first village, and then realising that it had no fresh orange juice, and no fresh baked goods, we decided to be strong. In our second village, which was a very strange ghost town built around a golf course, we walked determinedly on to the second bar, a whole kilometre after the first (the golf clubhouse, not very welcoming to dusty pilgrims). We were rewarded with a lovely bar with fresh orange juice, and some delicious lunch, enough to while away an hour before resuming our walk into Santo Domingo de la Calzada.

We are starting to get into Meseta country as the grape vines of the Rioja are gradually replaced by rape seed and wheat fields. Which has meant for some lovely walking over the last few days, with the mixture of different landscapes.