DAY 23: Astorga to Foncebadon

It was really cold when we set out this morning. I was grateful for my Patagonia jacket and gloves. The terrain started changing, with a lot of low trees and brush. We were heading towards the Irago Mountains.

For over a week, we have been on the trail and in albergues with a father and two daughters from Romania. They always say hello, but I didn’t think they spoke English. Today they started talking in excellent English and I learned that they are sisters, Carmen and Anka, but the man, Constantine, is Carmen’s partner, not their father. I was a little embarrassed because I asked about their father, but Carmen is 36, Anka is 30 and Constantine is 62, so it was an understandable mistake. He is Italian and Carmen lives in Milan, Italy. Anka still lives in the small village in Romania where she was born.

We also came upon an older couple on the trail. The woman was really struggling and she looked like she was about to fall over. We went over to try and help her, but her husband came and said he didn’t want her to sit down because she might not get up again. He seemed annoyed with our help, so we kept on going. A few hours after we arrived in town, as we sat in the sun on the terrace enjoying an egg sandwich and wine, I saw them arrive.

We weren’t sure how far to go today, but at the first possible stop, we decided to keep going, even though my backpack felt so heavy. The next town was four miles further, but as we left town one, we started climbing into the mountains. I prefer hiking uphill to flat, so I got a second wind and we made it to Foncebadon easily. It’s a tiny town, the main road isn’t even paved, but there were several albergues to choose from. We decided on the first one we came to, our usual choice. Why keep walking? It’s called Monte Irago, and our beds (not bunks!) are up a skinny flight of stairs in the attic. There are 14 of us in the room.

Albergue Monte Irago:

At night, there was a communal pilgrim’s dinner of vegetarian paella, among other things. We sat with a woman from India named Pagnya, a man from Italy, Carlo and a couple from Taiwan (they didn’t speak much English). It was the most interesting conversation we’ve had with others on the Camino and started when Pagnya asked why we were doing the Camino. Our conversations to this point about Camino have mostly been where did you start, how far are you going, how long do you have, etc. I did ask a few people their reasons for doing this before and several answered that they were doing it for religious reasons. But tonight was different. We talked about the different stages of life we were all in and Carlo shared his story of being diagnosed with skin cancer and then finding a book about the Camino shortly after his diagnosis. Pagnya’s journey is based on a desire “to connect with herself.” She is doing the Camino alone. We discussed our different strategies for tackling Camino (Carlo walks 30+ kilometers a day with little planning, sometimes running out of food and water on the trail, Pagnya gets up after everyone leaves in the morning and walks until she doesn’t feel like walking anymore, we are fairly well planned with options in mind depending on how we feel that day. Pagnya said that the dropout rate for through walkers was 75 percent and that most people drop out on the hot, dry, flat maseta area that we just left. That sounded like a very high number, so I googled it and read that only 25% of people who start in St. Jean Pied de Port finish in Santiago, but many had no intention of completing the entire journey at once, so I’m not sure they can be called dropouts.

Our dorm room in the albergue:

DAY 22: San Martin del Camino to Astorga

September 25, 2018

I spoke too soon yesterday. The albergue last night was so noisy with people snoring, coughing, talking in their sleep. One woman had a sleep apnea machine (I think that’s what it was)that wasn’t noisy, but kind of strange. The albergue did provide breakfast this morning, which was good and we were walking under a setting full moon by 6:30AM.

It was really cold this morning and I’m thinking I might need to start wearing a jacket in the mornings. The walk was much prettier today, through farmland and then a town, Hospital de Orbigo, that had a beautiful Roman bridge and an area that was used for jousting during the Middle Ages.

Our destination, Astorga, is a wonderful little city. Tuesday is market day, so we bought some fruit, cheese and bread for breakfast tomorrow. We walked through a Roman excavation site, and then on to the cathedral (there are probably ten churches in this town).Next to the cathedral is a home for a past bishop designed by Gaudi and built in the late 1800s. There are many Gaudi buildings throughout Spain and a park in Barcelona that I’ve seen and loved, so we went inside this one, too. It was massive and filled with stained glass windows. In the basement, there was a little museum with artifacts from Ancient Rome and the Middle Ages.

We’re staying in the municipal albergue, Siervas de Maria. It’s an old convent and is huge with 250 beds. It’s like a maze, with hallways and stairways leading to the kitchen and gardens and rooms. We’re lucky to be in a room with only two bunk beds and a big window that lets in lots of light. Our “bunk mates” are a brother and sister from Valencia, Spain, who are doing about five stages of the Camino. The man had two knee replacements in the past few years, so he’s doing well to be able to do part of the trail.

DAY 21: León to San Marti del Camino

September 24, 2018

Yesterday almost felt like a day off. We slept until 6:00AM, walked only 10 miles, walked around León like tourists and had a nice albergue for the night.

Today we were back to serious business, waking at 5:30, breakfast provided at the albergue (donation only), and then on the road again. We weren’t sure how far we would go today. Our guidebook had today as a short 12 mile segment, but we felt so good that we decided to continue a few more miles to the next town of San Martin del Camino. The route was very uninteresting today. Most of it was along the highway with a bunch of run-down towns. (It took well over an hour just to get out of León).

We’re staying in the Municipal albergue, a bit run-down, but not bad. There’s absolutely nothing to this town, so we’ll eat a pilgrim (communal) dinner here tonight, even though it isn’t until 8:00, which is late for me.

All new faces at this albergue, except Bob and his son Andrew. We met them days ago and our paths keep crossing, as they do on the Camino. Bob and Andrew are from Vancouver, although Bob immigrated there from China as a college student. He is quite talkative, and his son (about 22 years old) never says a word. The only time I heard his voice was a few days ago when we had no wi-fi, and he was on his phone using data. I asked him if he had read any news that day and his eyes lit up as he told me he was obsessed with the news, and proceeded to fill me in with the day’s events. (Update: No wi-fi today, so Andrew just came over to tell me Rosenstein is out.)

I’m liking the municipal albergues better lately and today, I realized why. Many of the young, partying pilgrims that we had with us the first half are gone, either ahead of us or off the Camino. That helps to make these municipal albergues quieter. But then we’ve also lost a lot of familiar faces. Michelle and Gabby took a bus into León and started walking from there yesterday because they were short on time. Karol and Aina, the Polish couple, were with us in the matrimonial room last night, but were planning on hiking 20+miles today. The last we saw of them was this morning, as they headed off holding hands, telling us they would see us down the trail when they stopped for coffee. But we never did see them. (Carol just texted Enrique saying they were 10 kilometers ahead of us). From here to Santiago, there are lots of different places to stop, so we’ll really be spread our. Twelve more days. We just realized we should finish by October 6th. All along we’ve been thinking it would be the 7th!

DAY 20: Mansillas de las Mulas to Leon

September 23, 2018

Last night was the worst sleep night I’ve had so far. The albergue was hot and noisier than usual. Everyone was up early, but we decided to get a later start because they served breakfast in the albergue at 7:00, so I missed a lot of the walk in the dark. But now we’re in León, another huge milestone. During this whole journey, León seemed so far away.

We decided to stay in the municipal albergue, Santa Maria de Carbajal, which is a parochial albergue. There was a long line when we arrived and check-in was slow. This is the first albergue that separates men and women in different dorms, but they have one small room, with five bunk beds for couples. They call it the matrimonial room. Enrique and I have a bunk here. Separate gender facilities, but living in sin is ok for the matrimonial room (they never asked if we were married). The bathrooms are also separate and unfortunately the women’s bathroom is downstairs and down a long hallway. They said I can use the men’s bathroom in the middle of the night, if I need it, as long as I lock the door. Still, I like this albergue, and I’m becoming a connoisseur of albergues.

We ate a huge lunch. Enrique just kept ordering food, in Spanish, so each course was a surprise. Of course, we needed a siesta after that and then we went out to explore León. It’s a beautiful city, with narrow, cobblestone streets and old stone buildings, a huge plaza mayor and, of course, the cathedral.

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Another reason I love Spain…when you ask for directions, people stop, take you by the arm and start leading you in the right direction, point, and give detailed descriptions of where to go. I haven’t seen one person brush us off and we’ve asked for a lot of directions.

DAY 19: Bercianos to Mansillas de Mulas

September 22, 2018

We shared our 4-bed room with two young Italian men last night. One spoke a little English, the other spoke Spanish. They had started hiking in Burgos and will finish in León because they have to get back to work. Many people do Camino in stages like that due to lack of time.

Food is never an issue on the Camino. We eat well and cheaply. Lots of snacking on the trail, followed by a late, huge lunch with a bottle of wine (it comes with the lunch so we have to drink it😊). Then a very light dinner of fruit and yogurt. Today is an exception. We stopped at a restaurant along the way for breakfast, which we usually don’t do, and we were rewarded with churros con chocolate.

Dinner is offered at our albergue, El Jardin del Camino, in Mansillas de Mulas, so we ate a light lunch.

After our rather luxurious accommodations of last night, we are in an albergue with 11 bunk beds in one room. We got in around 1:00, and the place was full. Luckily, we had reserved two beds yesterday, but I got the last lower bunk and Enrique is in the bunk above.

With my blisters feeling better, I was able to walk around town today. Parts of the wall and gates from the Middle Ages are still standing. In one archway, I saw a man wearing a Beto for senator t-shirt. I asked him if he was from Texas, which he was, and he asked me to take a picture of him because he had promised Beto he’d take a photo of his t-shirt in Spain. I guess they’re friends.

We also found this statue of tired pilgrims and decided to join them.😊

DAY 18: Terradillos de los Templarios to Bercianos del real Camino

September 21, 2018

People seem to be getting up earlier and earlier. When we hear people stirring, we get up, so today we were on the trail by 6:00AM. The sun is rising later and later, so we walked a lot in the dark before stopping for breakfast about four miles in.

The day went quickly with lots of distractions…two small towns and then the large town of Sahagun, with a visit to the farmacia (pharmacy) for supplies for my new blister. These pharmacies along the Camino will never go out of business. We also passed the geographical mid-point of the Camino, with this marker.

As we got close to Bercianos del real Camino, we saw a newish-looking albergue, La Perala, on the outskirts of town. We got beds in a room with only four beds and a private bathroom! It’s like a resort.

DAY 17: Carrion de los Condes to Terradillos de los Templarios

September 20, 2018

It was a rough night at the church of Santa Maria. The albergue had been remodeled, but there were forty-something beds and they were all in two big rooms that were only partly separated. There was more noise than usual and in the middle of the night, the man in the bunk above Enrique fell out of bed with a loud thud. Fortunately, he wasn’t hurt, but it was hard to go back to sleep after that.

People started stirring early, before five, which was strange because the door was locked until six, so a lot of people sat around waiting for the nun to unlock the door. I didn’t even want to think about what that would mean if there was a fire.

We left a little after six and had a long 16-mike trek through an area called the maseta. This area is flat, flat, flat with wheat fields on both sides and an occasional sunflower field. For miles, I walked and looked down the road that just seemed to stretch on forever.

Our destination is a town called Terradillos de los Templarios. It’s small, with not much to it except two albergues. Our albergue, Jacques de Molay, is like a little town on its own with a restaurant, bar, little store and an outside garden area, where we sat and relaxed for several hours in the afternoon and into the evening. The only thing it doesn’t have is wi-fi, so I’ll have to

post this tomorrow. Our room has only five beds here, and they are single beds, not bunks.

But the big news is that we have hit the halfway point! Today we completed 17 stages, with 16 left. It was hard to imagine reaching this point when we started our journey.

DAY 16: Fromista to Carrion de los Condes

September 19, 2018

Every town in Spain has a church. Some towns have several. (The photo above is one of the churches in Fromista, built in 1066). The churches are all old and beautiful, with spires rising high above all the other buildings. In the flat landscape that we’re now walking in, the church spires can be seen from far away. That’s a problem because we spot the church and know that our destination is ahead, but then we walk many more miles before we actually get to town.

The trail split today in one section, with one route going along the river (longer) and one along the highway (shorter). We chose the river because it would be prettier, even though it was still dark, before sunrise. No one else chose that route, so we walked on a nice dirt road by ourselves for quite a while before merging with the other route and then arriving in town.

It was a short walk of 12 miles today, so we got to town at 11:00. There are only three albergues here in Carrion de los Condes, and all three are Catholic albergues run by the nuns of the church. We are staying in the church of Santa Maria. Unfortunately, the albergue didn’t open until noon, so we put our backpacks in the line to hold our spot and went to sit in a park with Carlos and Anya and then joined by Michelle and Gabby. Once the albergue opened, we waited in line for our beds, and then waited for the one and only shower. Luckily, the nuns had tea and snacks for us as we waited.

The town’s name, Carrion de Los Condes, comes from the legend of El Cid (we saw his statue in Burgos). According to the legend, Cid’s daughters married counts from this area and Cid had them killed because they tried to rob him. Condes means counts.

This is a cute little town, unlike Fromista, which was kind of run-down. After lunch and siesta, we went to a guitar concert in a small church. The guitarist was from Norway and he was very good.

DAY 15:Castrojeriz to Fromista

September 18, 2018

We had another pilgrim’s dinner last night with people from our albergue. It’s a good way to get to know people, but Enrique says it creates groups of people who speak the same language, which is true, but unavoidable. He can sit with two groups and he’s really good at helping to translate for both groups. I talked with a couple from Canada, Vancouver Island.

It was a long day today of almost 16 miles. We started with a steep climb in the dark before sunrise, but most of the walk was flat. We had reserved our beds in our albergue, Estrella del Camino, in Fromista.

A few people from our albergue from last night are here and a few from the albergue the night before are here, also. We have lost a lot of people we met near the beginning of the journey. They are probably ahead of us. The only exception is Carol and Anya from Poland. We see them frequently and we’re always happy to see each other. They are young and so cute. In Burgos they bought new sleeping bags because the ones they had were too heavy. They wanted to send the heavy ones home, but we were in Burgos on Sunday and the post office was closed. No towns since then have had a post office, so they’ve been carrying two sleeping bags around. Today as they breezed by us, Carol (pronounced like Carl) yelled out, “Mission post office.” It closed at one so they had to rush to get to town.

The weather has been perfect. Clear, sunny days. It gets warm in the afternoon, but we have been finishing by 12:30, so we beat the heat.

DAY 14: Hornillos to Castrojeriz

September 17, 2018

Pilgrim dinner last night was interesting. About 12 of us from all over sitting at a long table enjoying paella and wine. Two pilgrims are from Gatineau, Canada, Jessie’s boyfriend’s home town. One of them, the man, kept saying he liked Americans, but I’m not so sure about that. One time he said he liked all Americans, except one, the leader. That was the first political statement I’ve heard on this whole journey.

The morning routine in the albergue was comical this morning. We were all tending to our feet with ointments and tape and Compeed, the Spanish version of moleskin. Seems like everyone is having problems, although my blisters were a little better today.

We had a short walk of 13 miles today. Luckily, we had made a reservation at an albergue last night for this town because the albergue was full when we got here and we got here before it opened. We already made a reservation for tomorrow night. The albergues we’ve been staying in the past few nights are private, smaller, quieter, generally older people than in the municipal albergues. This albergue has large dorm rooms, but single beds instead of bunk beds.

As we walked into town, we had a beautiful view of the church and an old castle on a hill overlooking town. We encountered a tour group from England walking through the town. One woman in the tour told me they were following the Camino route, but on a bus. She said they all felt guilty as they drove by pilgrims walking on the road this morning. Then the tour leader, a young guy, came over to talk to me. He whispered to me that he had to take the group slowly through town because they were all in their 60s and 70s. I told him I was in my 60s and he couldn’t believe it. I told him anyone can do Camino.😀 And then at our albergue we met a 75-year old man.

Today is the two-week mark of our journey. Hard to believe. Walking and doing laundry for 14 days.