Dave's Travel Blog

We are so glad to be out of the Spanish Meseta, so much so that we have tears in our eyes, much like the pic above. A not so difficult 20 kilometers has landed us in Leon. After 5 days of mental and physical anguish, we have arrived back into Spanish civilization and have overindulged in everything that Leon has to offer. We went on an afternoon tapas crawl, toured a few churches and then an evening dinner and drink extravaganza at a Leon microbrewery…the Four Lions Brewery. So, I don’t remember much about today, but I still have a few pics that I included in the gallery below.

We have walked over 300 miles and have another two weeks to go, but we are now very confident that we will be able to make it to Santiago. Another rest day in Leon tomorrow and then it’s back on the Camino.

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When we first entered the Meseta area of northern Spain over a week ago, the first few days were great with very nice scenery. As I mentioned in an earlier post, we wondered why many people skip this part of the walk, well, over the last 4 days, we got the answer. Today was the third or fourth day in a row of a long, straight and flat walk with very little to see. Most of the few old churches along the way are closed. small towns with places to eat are few and far between. Today, however, we finally saw hills and mountains in the distance and that gave us hope that the scenery will be better soon. We leave the Maseta tomorrow and make it to the major city of Leon, where will will enjoy a break day.

We were able to ship our packs today and walk with only day packs. That made the 16 miles of walking to Mansilla more tolerable. It’s the first time in 19 days that we weren’t carrying our regular packs.

We have settled into our albergue, visited a few churches in Mansilla, and have done some laundry. Heading out soon for some beer and food.

A emphatic shout out to Casa di Doru in Mansilla. Some of the best food and service we had in Spain so far.

I wish I had some better pics from today, but I don’t. Still…

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I didn’t blog yesterday because there was not one thing I wanted to remember about yesterday.  A complete throw away day.  It could have been because it was one long straight 16 mile walk with little in between or maybe it was the awful Jaques de Molay albergue we stayed in last night.  Awful because we were told that dinner started at 7 PM and we arrived at 6:55 and it looked like folks were already 1/3 through the meal.  The lady serving looked at us and told us to wait a bit and thirty minutes later, didn’t even acknowledge us.  Ruth asked her again and was told to wait again and nothing…I had already gone back to the room as I had no confidence in the place.  Unfortunately, there is absolutely nothing else in this town for food options. If anyone stumbles upon this blog that plans to walk the Camino, I would strongly recommend that you don’t go to the Jaques de Molay hostel.  Instead, walk another 3 km to the town of Moratinos as there are plenty of much better options there. But I didn’t know what beforehand. 

Today’s walk started great and I was feeling as good as I’ve felt in a while.  However, by the 20km we were all dragging…maybe because we didn’t have dinner last night.  I did have two breakfasts this morning to make up for it, but that didn’t seem to help.

We made it to the halfway point when we reached the town of Sahagun and we received a halfway certificate at the Santuario de la Virgen Peregrina church.  We then high tailed it out of town and slowly made our way to the town of Bercianos where we are staying at the hostel Rivero, which is really nice.  I hope we get dinner tonight.

Just an observation: I remember reading before I started this about the spiritual nature of the trip and the friends you will make along the way.  There are moments of that and we have met some good people.  But what doesn’t seem to be mentioned much is that it can be crowded…too crowded. And to be honest, you get tired of seeing the same people and hearing the same voices. Particularly annoying are the kids.  You just know that their parents gave them a boatload of money to get rid of them for the summer and they all seemed to have headed to Spain…lucky is.  I hate them. I guess not the best thing to admit on a walk like this…lol. 

Oh, well. We keep moving forward and look forward to our rest day in Leon. We also may finally ship our packs to our next destination tomorrow and walk with daypacks. I hope we are able to.

Some pics from today (none from yesterday’s throw away day):

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Because we had an 18 mile walk yesterday and were ahead of schedule, we only had a 10 mile walk to Carrion de los Condes today.  However, I think yesterday’s walk took it out of us as this walk felt like it was 18 miles.  My hip and feet felt awful most of the way.  We will reach the large city of Leon on Monday where we will spend two days, including our first rest day.  It can’t come soon enough.

Not much notable about today’s walk.  We took the “scenic” route near the river, but I don’t recall anything particularly scenic about it. A long 4 mile straight path over uneven ground followed by another long uneven dirt path through the woods.  It killed my feet and almost killed my will to go on.

There were a few scenic sections.  I think I mentioned this before, but sometimes you reach a landscape where it’s almost like you were dropped in the middle of the technicolor Land of Oz.  The colors just jump out at you.  

But still, despite the challenges and pain, we persevere and keep moving forward. We are staying in a nice place today with private rooms.  It is run by the Phillipian Sister of Carrion.

Some pics of today:

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Steep decent on our way to Poblacion de Campos

Since we had some relatively short days lately, we decided to push ourselves today and walk a little further than normal.  We planned to walk past Frómista, where most folks stay and settle in the town of Poblacion de Campos. It was a great idea in theory, but a bit of a struggle in practice.  The day started with a 3km walk out of Castrojeriz, then a very step  half mile 12 degree climb back to the Meseta, followed by an equally steep decent into one of the most wide open plains I have even seen. 

The rest of the day, was along seemingly never ending straight dirt roads that disappeared into the distance.  Making it worse was the constant headwind that we had to walk in…all 30 km to Poblacion de Campos.  It was both mentally and physically draining. Once again, not many places to stop for food.

The hotel had a nice hot shower and I made sure that I took enough ibuprofen to deal with all of the aches and pains. My feet were a nice shade of purple after all of this.  

As a reward for the extra effort today, we only have to walk 15 km tomorrow…a little over 9 miles. 

Pics for the day:

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