Javier to Palau d’Angelsola

 The Camino Ignaciano is 650km long and would take 27 days to transverse. Since we have a compressed timeline, there is a need to bypass some elements of the Camino to focus on others. I mentioned yesterday that we took a trip by bus to the ancestral home of St Francis Xavier. Today we had to bus back to the Camino and shave several days off the pilgrimage.

After a nearly 3 hour bus ride, we were dropped off in Milanuncious in the middle of what could be considered Spain’s desert. Hot dry and dusty were the order of the day as we walked about 8 miles under sunny skies, with clouds too lazy to block it and through fallow and barren fields that should have held wheat had there been enough rain. Not much to see but rocks and sometimes old equipment as it took 2 1/2 hours to get through. At the end, lunch plans had to change as the Venta de Santa Lucia was closed. But a short trip down the road brought us to the El Espano Buffet restaurant where I can unequivocally state the group got its money’s worth.

Then back on the bus for an hour to get to our hotel for the night in Palau d’Angelsola. We’ve been promised a more challenging hike tomorrow when we go to visit the shrine of Peter Claver, yet another of the original founders of the Jesuits.