9. Day 5 - Santo Domingo to Santovenia de Oca.

We had the feeling this was going to be a tough day. One of the problems we have is that all the maps we have are for walkers and, as we have found out, some of the walking tracks are totally unsuitable for riding. In which case we need to get on a road and some of these can be fairly busy. Anyway, knowing we had to cover 50k's and knowing there was going to be a tough climb in the last section, we elected to take the road to start with and covered the first 30 k's to Belorado in a couple of hours. As it turned out the actual Camino trail ran right alongside the road which would have been a disappointment to the walkers as there was a steady stream of trucks going both ways. They gave us a wide berth so were not too intimidating. After a quick snack we pushed on upwards another 10k until we got to Villafranca Montes de Orca where we stopped for lunch in the shadow of a church and discussed how we were going to tackle the steep climb for the next 6 k's - take the road which was snaking upwards with huge trucks going fairly fast around hairpin bends; or take our chance with the walkers on the Camino. We took the Camino and soon were pushing our bikes for an hour up to the top of a 1160m hill. Then walking them down part way and finally jumping on again and freewheeling for about 6k until we reached our hotel at Santovenia de Oca just on 4.30. So we had been on the go for 6 1/2 hrs for 50k but although it was a fairly hard day it was not as tough as we had anticipated. The scenery was not as good as the day before but the weather continued to be kind at around 22C. Some of the characters we have met along the way are amazing. One guy is pushing a kind of wheelbarrow strapped to his waist and told us that this is the 14th time he has walked the Camino.  The amazing thing is that we have met up with him a number of times and he is travelling as fast as we are on the bikes. We said to him "you are walking very fast" and he replied "no - you are riding very slow"! Tonight we had dinner with a woman from Texas who is 66 years old and is walking on her own. She is wearing not boots, but Crocs and swears she has not had a blister.  A couple of other women we have seen are wearing thongs! Another guy is riding a Unicycle! We have even seen someone with a donkey! One guy from Bavaria told us that we must experience an Albergue (hostel) at least one night to really get the Camino experience of everyone cooking and eating together which sounds great but I am not convinced that communal sleeping is for me! We did look around one and must admit it did look great but then again we did not see the sleeping areas. The mountain range we rode through today is full of oak forests and meant to be a paradise for wildlife. The only thing we spotted was a deer that was seen by Jenny jumping across the path. At the summit of Montes de Oca is a monument dedicated to the victims of a massacre during the civil war.