Day 22: Leon to Mazarife

I practically ran out of the city at 0600. The street cleaners were hard at work by 0530 and mountains of trash were being quickly loaded into trucks, the streets pressure washed, and everything made tidy. Once I got 8 kilometers out of town, into a small suburb of the city, I saw a group of pilgrims pondering their guidebooks. An unmarked spilt in the path was confusing everyone. Once the correct route to Mazarife had been established I jumped into the front group of four and started my click-clack hiking pole pace. Two horse women from the states were making fast work of the trail while I followed with Colin, one of my original Camino family from St. Jean. Together we blazed out fourteen miles!

We passed more earthen homes, cheese caves, wine cellars.

It felt good to hike at a fast clip, finishing our stage for the by 11am, fifteen miles in five hours. Colin and I decided to stay at the marvelous Hostal Tia Pepe. We were lucky that we got there so early as we got the last double room! Here we met a great couple from Austria on their second day of a shorter Camino of four weeks. We also reunited with the Texas A&M students and faculty. It was a nice time in a very friendly little agricultural town. Of course I had to venture out after nap time to watch the farmers and talk to folks. The little town seemed filled with tractors, implements, ag stuff everywhere. Corn was just coming up and the last of the hay was coming in. Potato fields were getting thick with foliage and every house was climbing with roses and beautiful gardens.

Colin's Camino tattoo. 

We really appreciated the extra time to rest as tomorrow our hike is twenty miles to Astorga, but it was such a pretty little town neither one of us was in a hurry to leave.

Resting St. James with our Hostal window behind.

View from my room! Clattering storks everywhere.

Protected by EU conservation law, stork nests and the birds are national treasures.

Another beautiful Castilian horse. Platinum mane and tail.

Day 21: Sahagun to Leon

I left Sahagun on the 1400 train to Leon to make up for my lost hiking day, and by 1430 the crowded train was sitting out in on the Meseta completely broken down. As the conductor came through each car to announce the hours long delay, people moaned. But then something very Spanish happened. The car doors all opened to the fields and hedgerows and people grabbed their bags of food and sweaters. Everyone had a picnic! Except for the confused Americans texting their friends and parents about how hot the coach car had become. I didn't want to be grumpy like them, so I joined an older Spanish woman at her request, sitting cross-legged at the edge of her picnic sweater. We had no clue was the other was saying, but the sausage, bread, soft  cheese and tangerine were delicious!

Welcome to Leon, a Roman city!

I came into Leon late, grabbed a taxi at the train station, and sped off to my room. Again, another ten or so festivals happening all at the same time and I was lucky that I reserved a room or I may have gone without! I made a quick dash around town to see the sites.

This is how I felt. 

The street outside my Hostal before it filled with 10pm parties.

I have to say that trying to see Leon late in the day, racing to get to places before they closed (and failing,) made me so tired. I returned to my room a little disappointed and closed the shuttered windows to the street noise, showered, and fell asleep. Not the day I had planned. I could hear the parties kicking into high gear by 10pm on the street below. Conveniently the room had an AC unit that I turned on to drown out the noise. I called the front desk and asked for a pizza. A small one came to my door by 11pm. I inhaled it and fell back to sleep. Crazy times in Leon - not.

Cathedral of Leon. Closed by the time I got there.