Leon and Villar de Mazarife

Made it to Leon yesterday, but since the hostel didn´t have Internet, and it was a holiday so most Internet places in the city were closed, I didn´t get to post.

The bus trip was pretty uneventful. It took a similar route to the Camino, so sometimes I saw pilgrims (twice even people that I knew), and it got me to Leon in three hours.

Being on the Camino, and hence walking pretty much everywhere, really distorts your sense of time and space. The idea of taking the bus for 180km seemed so long, because walking that would be about eight or nine days, but three hours in a bus and you´re there. 20 or 30km seems like a great distance when you´re walking, because it is essentially a whole day´s walk.

Upon arrival at the hostel in Leon (which was in a monastery), the first person I saw was one of the people I´d started out with in Saint Jean Pied de Port (one of the Dutchmen that had been walking since the Netherlands). Seeing someone familiar was nice, and we wandered about the city for awhile and spent some time in a cafe chatting. He´s pretty fast though, so most of the people we started with are still behind him, so I´ll probably end up seeing them in the next couple of days.

Today was about 21km to Villar de Mazarife. Finding the Camino out of Leon was a bit difficult, but together with a French-Canadian couple I found my way. We parted ways about 7km after we started, since they took the main route that followed the highway, and hence the ¨pilgrim treadmill¨, while I opted for a more scenic route to Villar de Mazarife.

So far I´m the only person here at this hostel, but since there are at least three in town, it could be that there are other pilgrims staying in town, but I haven´t seen them (most people are probably in Villadangos, on the main route rather than the scenic route). The hostel also has a bar-restaurant that will serve a pilgrim menu at 7pm, so I can eat without having to leave the hostel, which is nice because it is cold (though not as cold as Burgos - it appears the snow I thought was in Leon is actually further south along the Via De La Plata, the pilgrim route that comes up from Sevilla).

Tomorrow is a relatively short day (14km) to Hospital de Obrigo, where I will spend the night so that I can take another short day of 16km to Astorga on Tuesday. Then the days get a bit longer again as I cross another mountain range, though apparently not one as difficult as the Pyrenees. We´ll see how that goes.

My feet are doing a lot better, and I could´ve gone on for a few more kilometres today, but being as the next place with a pilgrim hostel is Hospital de Obrigo, that wasn´t possible, since a 36km day is not quite what I had in mind. And Vicks Vaporub isn´t just for colds - it was suggested to me to rub it on my feet before walking, and it does seem to have made a good difference in terms of relieving aches and pains around my heels, so that is good news.

Time to sign off and go read about the route for tomorrow. Hasta luego!

P.S. The person ¨i¨ who has been commenting - do I know you? You haven´t mentioned who you are.