I’m forced to say that Pam was up first today. Her alarm went off at 6:15 and she was up by 7. We were on the road by 7:45–early for us, late for the Camino.
Rounding the corner from our Pension, we found a group of Spaniards still drinking and celebrating Madrid’s win last night. The dance club just closed at 7:30a–Shaun complimented himself on not gaining admission last night as he would not be able to hike today. We continued walking and found another group of “slightly” inebriated Spanish men. They tried talking with us for a while but one of the guys broke off from the group and started walking with us across town. He followed us and tried communicating with us all the way to the Parador Hotel. It was an old hospital/monastery/prison and was featured in “The Way” when they rented a nice hotel suite.
There’s a pilgrim statue staring up at the facade. The Spaniard told us to give him our camera and he would take our picture. He flashed us his badge to indicate he wasn’t going to steal our camera. He was a detective protecting us on our walk out of town.
We stepped inside the Parador to grab a bite for breakfast, but since it was Sunday, they only offered a 20 Euro buffet for breakfast and we wanted to walk today so that was out of the question. I would feel obliged to eat 20 Euros worth of food (food is cheap in Spain and that would bloat me).
The rest of the walk out of Leon was depressing at best. I hate to say it, but the guide book was right in suggesting taking a bus to avoid the blight, but I’m here to walk the whole trail no matter how much it sucks. This was all road walking and through depressed areas of the city. It was a huge relief to make it to La Virgen del Camino (I always like encountering virgins on the trail).
We stopped for breakfast and did a little grocery shopping. The guidebook disagrees with itself as to which route is the official Francais Route. We chose to take the route away from the highway to get a little quiet. Several signs agreed with my assessment that this was the official route.
Shaun got accosted by a young German as to why he was hiking, where he started from, was he really hiking the entire way, etc. I wondered why he was so forward with Shaun (sometimes people are inadvertently rude to Shaun and it pisses me off). I walked with the guy for a bit and found out he was just genuinely inquisitive. They had a limited time to hike the trail and were forced to skip sections of the trail to keep their schedule. I explained Pam’s and my plans and they had a hard time comprehending how we could just quit but seemed to be behind the plan.
We left them behind at Fresno del Camino when they took a break. We had snacks and drinks to keep us going if we got to the point we needed a break. Today was perfect hiking weather–mid 60s and overcast so we were making good time (or so we thought–until another young couple passed us like we were standing still).
We decided to take a break in Chozas de Abajo right about noon. We couldn’t believe we were already 10 miles into our day before lunch. We all felt like we were dragging a bit even though we thought we were moving fairly well considering we were coming off a zero day. I did have a hard time staying focused on the trail today. I was spending too much time thinking about how my right heel was hurting as well as the piggy that went “Wee wee wee all the way home” on my left foot.
We got some Aquarius’ to have with our snacks and took off the boots to cool the dogs down. They gave us complimentary snacks with our drinks. I took one look and decided “no way” but Pam insisted it was a pasta dish and she was game. It was the chewiness pasta she ever had. After about 5 minutes of chewing, I pointed out the trash can for her. It turned out to be little bits of stomach she was chewing on which still makes me gag writing this 10 hours later. She needed a few snacks and gum (cheweys in Aussie) to get the memory out of her head.
When we got to the bar, Barry was there, but he was calling it a day. He was headed to the same town we were but he had been forced to carry his full pack today and it proved to be more than he was used to handling so he called a cab. He’s usually uses a luggage service and walks anywhere from 12-20 miles a day. Interrupting a routine at this point in the trip can be disastrous. I hope he’s alright tomorrow.
Right as we were packing up to hit the road again, Andre and Katalina popped in. They didn’t get out of Leon until 9:30 yet still caught up with us with 3 miles to go. They told us where they were staying and we agreed to meet up later.
I could barely walk once we got going again. All the road walking had completely trashed my feet. My compassionate wife could only laugh at the old man she was married to (maybe I need to lay off the older woman routine every now and then–not going to happen). She grudgingly gave me 1200 mg of Ibuprofen to mask my pain and I was good to go in a mile.
We still got into Villar de Mazarife by 2. We decided to go check out Tiopepe in the hopes that we might be able to get one of their small rooms for the night. We hit the jackpot and got a four bed room with another older German woman, Anna. She is section hiking the Camino and hopes to finish it next year.
We thought we’d take a 10 minute nap, but we all know how that ends. 2 hours later at 5 we woke up, took showers, and went down for a cold drink (non-alcoholic!). As soon as we got downstairs, we got a text from George saying he was in the same town. He wasn’t supposed to be doing 13 mile days so we were surprised and impressed. We hoped he had gotten a cab and skipped the exit walk of Leon. He didn’t.
He met up with us at the bar across from our Albergue. On the way there, we ran into Andre and Katalin, as will as Tim and Linn (but they were not drinking today so we didn’t spend time with them–how can you not drink with 1 Euro glasses of wine?). We also met Allen from Denmark.
We all ended up heading back to our Albergue for a pilgrim’s dinner (after 3 or 4 cheap wines). Andre and Allen bought additional wine for dinner which we all shared. We also met another Aussie, Gavin, and talked to him for a bit. Gavin is planning a 6 moth trip around the US so we developed an itinerary for him. We probably had too much fun tonight considering we have a 30K day looking us in the face for tomorrow.
