Day 16: Deeper into the Meseta (Boadilla del Camino to Carrión de los Condes)

Following another night of profound snoring from a delightful but rotund lady, I woke up in a stinker of a mood this morning. In fairness, the woman is very pleasant and at an age where I would guess that she's 60+ I applaud her for walking the Camino on her own. But putting that aside her Tommy gun-esc snoring was unbearable and I woke up wanting to kill someone with my beautiful new knife.

Brace yourselves because a rant is coming...

If someone stood aside in a doorway to let you pass through, what would you do? If someone waited cheerfully and gave you a warm smile whilst allowing you to scale the stairs unhindered, how would you react? You'd acknowledge the presence and manners, perhaps even smile back and you would absolutely say, 'thank you!' wouldn't you? Of course you would! You're a normal human, one that appreciates kindness and manners! Someone who reciprocates pleasantries with enthusiasm and eye contact! But above all you're British. The arrogant sods that pepper the rest of Europe couldn't give a damn about such things; they just bundle past you without so much as a cursory glance or a smile. It grates on my soul when I have to incredulously and pugnaciously yell, 'Gracias!' over my shoulder - it makes me grind my teeth for a hours after.

Moving on swiftly, once we had got to the next village (Fromista) and I had indulged in a chewing gum to save my enamel (an orange flavour which tastes like toilet bleach), we found ourselves nearly following the wrong path on several occasions. For the first time the Camino was SO poorly marked that on several occasions I had to whistle and redirect other peregrinos who were soldierong past the turning with their head torches on.

With the confusion of Fromista behind it was practically cantered towards Carrión. My leg was feeling less painful this morning thanks to a late night, vaseline fuelled rub down from Paolo. His English is quite poor so trying to calm him down and explain that the vaseline was just for my leg was quite a task; in hindsight I shouldn't have cornered him alone in the toilets in just my boxers.

Carrión is a great little stop over town, its plaza has some great cafes and best of all a supermarket so we can get some cheap food and drinks. I'm happy to report that I have restocked my vaseline stores and made everyone a jambon and queso bochodillo for tomorrow morning as we have an initial 17km before we hit a town. I know what you're thinking, and yes, I am too good to this motley crew.

After learning to play gin with everyone and playing for cocktail sticks which got surprisingly tense, I'm heading to bed feeling optimistic about our slightly shorter 25km walk tomorrow. That being said I fully intend to mow down any Italian that I meet on a stairwell as well as bowl over any Spaniards that dates to cross a door's threshold with me. Look out you discourteous gits.