A rather quick walk to Santo Domingo

My uncle David did this walk roughly 10 years ago. Since my mother and I began our journey we’ve been emailing back and forth comparing notes. He mentioned that some of the villages we were about to walk through were greatly affected by the recession. We saw the devastation today. It was an unbelievably eerie experience to walk through one of the towns. You could see that at one time it had been prosperous. Street after street of houses. Beautiful modern style condominiums and Swiss style town houses now sit completely empty and even unfinished.

The walk to Sto Domingo, in comparison, was an easy one. Through more vineyards and over the plains through fields, we followed one another. Normally we have at least a few hours where we rarely see anyone. Today we were all going at the same steady pace.

The group of people we’re walking with couldn’t be kinder. There is an organized group from Korea, incredibly sweet people. Also we met Beth from California, another man from Ireland, Gerry, and Lars from Denmark. Thank you Lars for holding our polls when we needed to get something out of our bag… for the 100 th time! This journey has brought so many interesting people into our lives.

Tonight we were spoiled by an amazing man who booked us a room in a former 12th century hospital built by St. Dominic to take in travelling pilgrims on their way to St. James. It’s charming, it’s majestic and it’s worth walking into, if even just for a peek…. AND I have my feet soaking in the bathtub… yes bathtub, in the room as I write this! Heaven.

Unfortunately the monastery is closed! It’s supposed to be gorgeous. I was looking forward to visiting it… however we did see the steeple from a distance… in fact we could see it for miles as we walked down the hills and into the town.

Buenos Noches to all of you, thank you for following our way. XO