One of the greatest aspects of the Camino is the completely spontaneous way your journey unfolds.   There is no point in making advance reservations for your lodging each day because you never know how far your legs will take you, or how an unexpected human interaction may change your trajectory.   Just get up at sunrise, enjoy your peregrino desayuno and start walking.   With that said,  a guidebook is essential to study your route and sleeping options for each day,  and the one I carry is John Brierly’s  Camino de Santiago, Camino Frances– which seems to be the most popular with Anglo travelers.  This book covers both practical and mystical aspects of the journey, and “opcion” routes, i.e. paths less  traveled which typically take one deeper into the countryside at the price of greater walking distances.    In the spirit of YOLO, I always take the “opcion” routes to breakaway from the crowds and test my route finding skills.

Over the past week I veered right on two opcion routes which provided their own distinctive rewards.  On the 17th day of my journey,  while stopping for a water refill at the Fuente (fountain) in Villovieco, I stopped for a chat with two Spanish mothers and their 16 year-old daughters.   They were on a mother/daughter bonding trip, and they were the only other pilgrims I met on this opcion route.  As we were chatting away, Pepe approached us with a bucket full of almonds and his handy nutcracker.  We cracked almonds while Pepe cracked jokes and got our fill of nuts from this classic old Spanish country dweller.

Two days later I faced a dilemma.   I was 70 KMs outside of León, and due to a slight muscalculation on distance computation I needed to cover this distance in 48 hours or lose a day on a non-refundable hotel booking.  However,  this section of the Camino included the longer “opcion”  Via Romana which Brierly describes saying:

Pilgrims will encounter no asphalt, no sendas,  no houses but also no water and little shade apart from a few rivers that crisscross this tranquil landscape – so bring food and water to fortify you along this remote path.  Classified as the longest extant stretch of Roman road left in Spain today, we follow in the footsteps of Emporer Caesar Augustus!

Considering the historical theme of this journey,  how could I not walk this Opcion? Now back to  my dilemma: in order to walk the Via Romana and make my León timeline,  it required committing to a 43 KM walk,  including  30k across the most desolute stretch of the Camino, on 75 degree day with one water bottle and one village in between!   Well if the Roman Legions could do it in their leather sandals surely I could do it in my Oboz hiking shoes – so I topped out my water bottle and headed out.

The path alternated between worn stones and dirt and was definitely rougher going than the conventional Camino.  Route markers were fewer and farther in between,  but for the most  part route was easily identified as the sole track across the expansive plain.  Halfway through I met a German guy named Jan at the only village on the route and over a cold cerveza and soup I convinced him to join me for the final 15 KMs of the journey to Religios (good name for a pilgrimage town!).  He started strong, but after 10 KMs Jan hit the wall and curled up for a nap in the shade of small, widely foliated tree so I walked the final hour solo.   I crested the final hill to Religios at 5:30 pm  completely exhausted,  out of food and water, but also exhilarated from the adrenaline rush of surviving the mental and physical challenge of the Camino’s most demanding “opcion” .   Next stop León!