Today’s 20 km trek would take us to the bustling medieval town of Salamanca.

Our host at the local bar we ate in the night before kindly agreed to open early at 7am to serve us breakfast of hot coffee and Tosdados.

An hour later we were back on the trail to find a light dusting of snow on the ground and a real chill in the air.

A refuge halfway – the only potential resting point, required a short diversion off the main path, so it was rather disappointing to find this closed.

Some 4 hours later we finally arrived in Salamanca and descended on a local bar.

We all sat down, with Davin removing his muddy boots which had leaked to reveal even muddier socks.

Then as if sent from above, a local street hawker appeared from nowhere with a selection of socks…Usually well known for his religious cynicism on the Camino, Richard insisted this was ‘Devine intervention’ and apparently a personal epiphany for him.

Arriving at the local municipal Albergue we were presented with a whole new set of challenges. The local Hostelario seemed friendly enough , but had his own rather unique way of doing things.

For the first time in more than 60 Albegue stopovers, for some unknown reason we were all under suspension of being carriers the infamous Camino ‘Bedbugs’

Unsure whether this was just a precaution or perhaps because we were just a bit smelly , we were instructed to decant all of our belongings into a bucket , place our rucksack in an industrial grade sack and then store this in a special cupboard.

Dazed and bewildered and too tired to argue , bucket in hand we went off to find our bunks and somewhere to wash our clothes.

After dinner we arrived back at the Albergue within a minute of the strict 10pm pilgrim curfew. Then straight to bed with our French guest Lauren joining our room . By the time we awoke he had already left , no doubt regretting his decision not to accept the offer of earplugs the night before.