El Camino de Santiago - 2017

Day 22: Rabanal del Camino to El Acebo de San Miguel

Michelle wrote:
28 Sept. Thursday

Dawn at Rabanal del Camino

We were woken up at 7:50 am by the maid coming into the house to start cleaning!  The shades make the room really dark and we could have kept on sleeping if she hadn’t come in.  So, up we got and left the albergue just as the sun was coming up.  We could see the meseta on the horizon as the sun rose.  It was very pretty.  It was nice to be up in the hills again where we could enjoy a nice big view.  
We began the 5.3 km climb to Foncebadon, an interesting mountain village.  We are beginning to see the use of slate now in their buildings.  The mountains are beautiful and some of the the trees are just beginning to change colors.  There are also pine trees here.  We stopped in Foncebadon for breakfast and Curtis was thrilled because the bar we stopped at (2nd bar, of course!) had corn flakes and muesli out on a table for breakfast.  It was very informal and relaxed.  Just help yourself to what you want and we’ll figure out how much it costs.  

Cold cereal for breakfast - the first since Logroño

We made it to the 2nd highest point on the camino (1505 m) and the Cruz de Ferro.  Everyone was happy to be there and it was very meaningful for some, for various reasons.  The tradition is that you leave a rock there that is symbolic or meaningful to you.  It can be an emotional experience for some pilgrims and it was nice to see the respect everyone gave to those who needed a private moment at the cross.  The cross is at a park at the top of the mountain and buses and cars come by.  It almost seemed like a popular tourist stop, which it probably is.  

The approach to Cruz de Fierro, the high point of the Camino this year.

Michelle at Cruz de Fierro

We met some more Canadians that were part of a tour group that came by bus.  They could get off the bus and walk or ride the bus when they got tired of walking.  They seemed to be enjoying themselves and their version of doing the camino.

We continued on the rocky path and passed the ruins of a village near the top of the mountain.  It was right on the edge of the road.  

Then we passed just below the top of the mountain, the highest on the camino, 1515 m.  It was lovely to see mountain after mountain and sometimes a glimpse of a village tucked into the side of a hill. 

Welcome to the mountains of Galicia

Then we began the descent on a very rocky and tricky path.  We had to watch where we placed our feet because of  loose rocks, slipping on sheets of slate or shale.  Even the powdery dirt was slippery. 

A smooth section on the walk
down to El Acebo de San Miguel

 We were able to stop and enjoy a beautiful view of the huge valley where Ponferrada lies.  

Ponferrada is somewhere down there, and beyond you can see the mountains we will be crossing in June 2018.

We came upon a woman that had fallen a few moments before on the tricky trail. Fortunately, there were already 3 other women there helping her.  We stopped to see if we could help and we were able to make use of the First Aid kit that we had with us.  One woman was a nurse and cleaned her scrapes with water and sprayed our Neosporin on them, but we couldn’t do a thorough job of cleaning.  She was in a lot of pain and we were afraid she may have injured a rib.  She was able to stand up and walk to the highway, which was just down the path a bit.  Curtis carried her backpack for her.  We all stopped where the camino crossed the highway and she was able to call her albergue and ask them to send a taxi to pick her up.  While she was talking to them a taxi showed up out of the blue!  Curtis explained the situation to the driver and he was able to take her and her sister to their albergue and maybe to a doctor.  We never saw her again.  She was very fortunate to have fallen so close to the road.  It would have been very difficult for her to walk the remaining 2 km to the nearest village.  That part of the camino was very rocky and slippery and was easy to fall on if you lost concentration and put your foot down wrong.
We made it into Acebo, a village on the side of the mountain, and stopped at the first albergue that had an available private room.  We were really tired from the strenuous trail and enjoyed taking showers and resting.  Even though we didn’t cover a really long distance (16 km), it was hot, about 74 degrees and there weren’t very many trees for shade.  Hot days drain your energy faster than cool ones.  Our albergue didn’t have laundry facilities so we had to go to the other end of town to their partner albergue, La Casa de Peregrinos.  This is a big new albergue with a beautiful view of the valley below.  It is quite the social place, too.  It  is nice to hear happy pilgrims reuniting and talking.  There is even a swimming pool!
We ate dinner with our 2 Canadian friends, Jim and Brenda, at our albergue.  They happened to be staying there, too!  They are very nice people and interesting and fun to talk with.  They live near Lesser Slave Lake in Alberta and used to live in Peace River when they were newlyweds.  Both of those towns are important places in one of my favorite books, Mrs. Mike. 

This was our last night on the camino for this year.  We were a little sad, a little relieved, and little happy.  We planned to meet Fuco somewhere on the trail to Ponferrada.  That was very comforting to know that we would soon have a ride to A Coruna!

Day 22, El Camino 2017

Good walking surface coming out of Rabanal del Camino

Tomorrow the walking ends for 2017. We reach Ponferrada, and Fuco Rei comes down from A Coruña to walk the last kilometers with us and then take us to his home.
The images today highlight the transition in terrain as we move into the mountains. There are a few trees changing color, but the orange in some of these pictures is from the ferns.

Looking back towards Astorga and the meseta beyond

Taking a break in the tall grass next to the spring. The trail
climbs through the trees in the background of this photo.

Look closely and you can see where the previous photo was taken from.

Today we hiked from Rabanal del Camino to the village of El Acebo de San Miguel. We passed the Cruz de Fierro at the highest point on the trail. From there it was down a very rough and rocky trail to Acebo. We could see Ponferrada in the distance before we could see any evidence of our destination (Acebo).

Approaching Foncebadon, the last village on this side of the mountains between Astorga and Ponferrada.

Looking back at Foncebadon.  Rabanal del Camino is further down the
mountain and Astorga in the far valley.  Neither are visible in this picture.

She's coming down;
We were going up.
She's wearing a bell because...
her horns don't work.

Coming down this rocky section an older woman from Australia fell and hurt herself. When we arrived, she had just fallen, landing on her side, scrapping her elbow and knee and possibly broken a rib. Along with her sister, three other women were there, two of which were nurses from Canada and none of which brought out any kind of first aid kit. What? So the nurses cleaned the wounds with our water and applied antiseptic from my 1st Aid kit. No bandages were needed. The big concern was the possible broken rib. We were fortunate to be within 200 ft of where the Camino crosses the road. She gingerly walked to that point. While trying to call a taxi, one drove up. We flagged it down and off she and her sister went to town.











El Acebo de San Miguel is a quaint little village on the side of the mountain.

Approaching San Miguel de Acebo

Today was the first time we walked into town with no pre-determined place to stay. Fortunatly the first place we asked had a nice private room for two.

Main thoroughfare of San Miguel de Acebo

Albergue La Casa del Peregrino.
Home Sweet Home for our last night on the Camino de Santiago 2017

While waiting for our clothes to dry, Roman and his handicapped daughter, Aurora (13), from Australia arrived. He said it was extremely difficult getting her cart down the rocky trail. I can imagine. My hat is off to him for doing this. It was heart warming to see Auroras reaction to the 'sister' pilgrims who fawned over her.

Aurora with her fan club

As we've been hiking, I've had to force my self not to resent being passed by faster hikers. I am not 'worse' than them just like I'm not 'better' than the folks we pass. In fact often we will pass a plodding hiker only to be passed by them while we take a break.
Similarly in life... some folks who I think have everything they need... are not able to do this hike, even though they want to. I struggle to find the balance between being satisfied with my lot in life, and the need for self improvement.

El Camino de Santiago - 2017

Day 21: Astorga to Rabanal del Camino

Michelle wrote:
27 Sept. Wednesday

Leaving Astorga.  Our packs are
lighter than the pilgrim behind us.

We left the albergue in Astorga around 7:30 am and had a chilly walk through town, past the stores and cathedral and out through the newer suburbs.  Astorga was an interesting town with a lot of history - it was and is still a crossroads town.  Roman roads, pilgrim routes, market routes, all met in Astorga.  The walls are impressive, too. 

The walk was pretty easy even though we climbed from 900m to 1155m.  I was dreading that, but it turned out to be very easy.  We walked through scrub oaks and pines again, but they are bigger then on the meseta.  We finally saw and heard sheep!  We could see them going into some trees and heard the bells and we could also hear the shepherd whistling for the dog.  It was nice to see and watch some animals.  They’ve been scarce along the camino since Navarra.

Curtis’s toe was hurting again and the blister on my right foot was sore, so we took our time walking to Rabanal del Camino.  Rabanal is a nice village up on the mountain.  It was hot (72 deg) and we were tired, so we went straight to our albergue, Nuestra Senora del Pilar at 2 pm.  We had a beautiful private room in a separate building that appears to be a private house. They have rented out 3 bedrooms and one bathroom.  We have to do any cooking or laundry at the main albergue.  There were a lot of people sitting around in the courtyard of the albergue, so we were happy to be over in the house where it was nice and quiet.  

We had a frustrating afternoon trying to buy train tickets online to take us from A Coruna to Madrid.  The website was confusing, the customer support wasn’t terribly helpful and the wifi was better at the albergue than at the house.  So we sat outside near the bar for a couple of hours trying to get the tickets.  After a while we took a break and came back to the house because we were getting cold.  Curtis was finally successful in getting the train tickets for Monday, October 2nd!  That was a huge relief!  We always underestimate how difficult it is to get tickets and we wait too long to get them.  We need to remember this for next year!

We went to a nice cozy restaurant in the village and had a nice, simple dinner.  I had a salad and Curtis had soup.  It was just the right amount of food and it tasted good, too!  We saw our Canadian friends, the Yamkowys there. 

Curtis writes:
We left in the dark again, anticipating a challenging walk up the mountain to Rabanal del Camino.
As we were leaving town, we came across this mural that we had not noticed in our earlier ramblings.

On an earlier day, the wall looked like this.  You can check it out at on Google Maps, here.

The spires of La Catedral de Santa Maria de Astorga can be seen in the image below if you look carefully a little to the left of the trail (a dark protrusion just below the horizon).  The horizon is where we were yesterday around 10:30 a.m., taking a picture where the spires of the cathedral could barely be seen through the trees.

Astorga in the rear view mirror

On this days' trek we came across something we had not seen on the Camino to date.  In the village of El Ganso, parked along the trail was a nice van with a logo: Butterfield & Robinson.  Along with the van there were about 8 bikes like the one in the picture below.

I like the computer, the soft seat and most of all:
the electric motor (see the battery on the bar
just behind the front wheel).

At Butterfield.com I learned that they have tours all over the world.  The tour from Leon to Santiago de Compostela takes 6 days and 5 nights with the cost being around $4k.  Gotta pass on that.

The church in El Ganson has the common problem
of stork nests on the belfry

The umbrella shown here is designed to
be attached to the backpack.  I LIKE it:
Hands Free!

Finally: walking in the shade of trees.

 The last part of the trail that I remember going through the woods was before the meseta, before Burgos... between Villafranca Montes de Oca and Atapuerca.  Love the trees.

Here is where we thought we would spend the night.... but no.

Overall, the hike uphill to Rabanal del Camino was not painful.  We thoroughly enjoyed the change of scenery.  When we arrived at our albergue, we were greeted by a college age girl who spoke English perfectly and after processing our passport and fees, guided us to our room in a different building.  In fact our room was in a new home around the corner.

Home SWEET home in Rabanal del Camino

A very comfortable Normal bed

 We got a great deal, because I don't remember the cost of this place.  Had it been substantial, I would have looked for a different place.  You win some and you loose some.  This one was certainly a winner.

Michelle entering our room in Rabanal del Camino

The room was in a private home that seemed to be no older than 2 years.  The bathroom was very nicely furnished - and the bedrooms too.  We shared the bathroom with the guests who stayed in the bedroom across the hall.  Our schedules did not coincide, so we never met them.
We were late to dinner that day and missed the mass where the monks sang.  (We'll catch that next time).  But as we were entering the restaurant at Hostal El Refugio, we met the Yamkowys from Northern Canada.  We had first been introduced to them by the Sweenys while eating dinner in the plaza in Carrion de los Condes.  (See Day 12).  They were staying at El Refugio.  It was fun to talk with them and get their recommendations for the menu.

Dinner at El Refugio in Rabanal del Camino

Happy boy at dinner time

Delicious Salad

I chose the soup - it was good.

A MOST EXCELLENT dessert

In conclusion, we really liked our stay at Rabanal del Camino.  We got a good nights sleep in eager anticipation of climbing over the mountain the next day and arriving in Ponferrada the day after.

El Camino de Santiago - 2017

Day 20: Villares de Órbigo to Astorga

Michelle wrote:
26 Sept. Tuesday

Morning Selfie at Albergue Villares de Orbigo

We left the albergue at 7:30 am and began walking in the predawn light. We couldn’t get a good picture of the end of the meseta because it was too dark. We climbed a hill and looked out over the vast flatness and said, “Goodbye meseta!” It is good to be back in the hills with vistas to look forward to.

A short 2.5 km walk brought us to second breakfast, or Santibanez de Valdeiglesia. Then up and down the hills we went. Near the top there is a man who lives on the camino and he offers fresh fruits to the pilgrims.  His house is right there and kind of open. It is called La Casa de los Dioses (the Abode of the Gods). He is a New Age/42nd Parallel kind of guy.  Just after passing his place we reached the top of the hill and could see Astorga below.  That was nice to see where we would be at the end of the day.  

2nd Breakfast at a bar in Santibáñez de Valdeiglesias

As we came into the suburbs of Astorga we met a fun Irish couple that hike a part of the camino for 5 days every year.  They will probably finish this year.

Astorga is an ancient city up on a hill and surrounded by a big wall.  There are some ruins of a Roman home with a beautiful mosaic floor.  It is right in front of a church.  I am glad they are trying to preserve the ancient history here.  We check into a big 150+ bed albergue - Siervas de Maria, and were lucky to get a small room with just one bunk bed for 5 euros each.  The bathroom is across the hall:  3 showers, 3 sinks, and 3 toilet stalls.  All coed.  It is not quite as comfortable as other private rooms but costs 25-35 euros less.  Ironically, those mattresses on the bunkbeds were the most comfortable of all of the albergues we have stayed in!  The albergue is very clean and smells good, too.  The volunteers there were 3 Americans and a German.  We haven’t seen any other American volunteers on the camino.  

We had to wait in a line to do our laundry because there were only 2 working washing machines.  After we hung up the clothes we walked through Astorga to the big beautiful cathedral.  We went into the gift shop, but didn’t take the cathedral tour.  Next to the cathedral is the Palacio Episcopal (Camino Museum now) built by Gaudi.  We took the tour of that fascinating and beautiful building.  I’m not sure if someone like an archbishop lived there or what, but it doesn’t look like a house to me!  It is very beautiful and ornate.  Now it is home to a lot of art that refers to St. James (Santiago).  High arched ceilings and stained glass windows that are different in each room.  Very impressive!  In the basement there were a lot of Roman artifacts, mostly stone.

We ate dinner at a bar that served pizza. It tasted really good because it wasn’t a pilgrim meal! We have to get an early start in the morning for a difficult day that is mostly uphill. Curtis’s toe is still hurting, but he's trying to tough it out for 3 more days.

Curtis writes:
Leaving Villares de Orbigo we immediately walk through the hills. We stopped for a quick breakfast and bathroom break while it was just getting light in Santibanez. (Actually it was second breakfast because the Belgium woman had hot chocolate and toast for us at 7 this morning when we left her place.) Shortly after that we passed these cows along the road.

When she was younger, Michelle's friends
named a calf after her.  Baby animals have
a special place in this girl’s heart.

Sometimes she's a tease

Climbing the gentle hill we looked back over the meseta. The picture with the sun coming up does not adequatly show the expanse of the plain, but the lighting has it's own interesting effects.

Sunrise over the meseta, from the western end.

We stopped for a break in the shade provided
by this planted grove of trees along
Arroyo del Valle de Rozas.

Our first hint that we are approaching Astorga: you can see the Cathedral through
an opening in the trees and maybe even the Episcopal Palace designed by Gaudi.

Astorga from the East
Beyond Astorga you can see the mountains we cross 2 days later.

Entrance to our albergue in Astorga: Siervas de Maria

We are staying in a huge place with more than 150 beds. The people running the place are well organized volunteers. We were fortunate enough to have a room with our own bunk bed in it.

A simple clean room with bunks that don't squeek every time you roll over.

View from our room in Astorga, looking south away from the city.

View from the wall.  Our albergue is the building on the far left.

View from the wall  the wall adjacent Jardín de La Sinagoga

Self-portrait with Calle del Jardin in the background

I liked Astorga. They seemed to be more sensitive to the tourist trade than other small cities we've been through. Leon had a different feel to it, mostly because it's more of an industrial center. Next time I visit Astorga, I want to tour the Roman excavations, tour the cathedral and stay in a nice hotel where I can sleep in. I should check and see when their Feria is, and plan accordingly. The feria in Logroño was a blast!

El Camino de Santiago - 2017

Day 19: Villar de Mazarife to Villares de Órbigo

Michelle wrote:
25 Sept. Monday

Morning Selfie at Villar de Mazarife

We began our walk at 8:00 am and had a pleasantly cool, long, straight walk for almost 10 km from Villar de Mazarife to Villavante.

The fields are now mostly corn and it was much more pleasant than the walk yesterday.  We are getting closer to the hills and mountains again and everything looks better.  We saw an Australian man pushing his handicapped daughter in a 3-wheeled wheelchair.  We’d seen him in Leon.  He is giving her a chance to experience this pilgrimage - very admirable.  He is quite popular on the camino because of his selfless love for his daughter.  And he is very friendly.  

The town of Hospital de Orbigo was not very impressive as we came into it.  When we got to an old, very long bridge our impression completely changed.  The bridge was built in the 13th century over an existing Roman bridge.  The river used to flood, hence the long span.  Then they dammed the river to provide irrigation water for the fields.  The river is now much smaller, but still beautiful.  There is a big field in the former floodplain and every year in June they have a jousting re-enactment there.  I’d like to see that sometime.  

We ate lunch just across the river and enjoyed the walk through this side of town.  We then had a short 2 km walk to Villar de Orbigo and passed a farmer harvesting his potato crop.  There was a tractor that turned up the dirt and sucked/scooped up the potatoes.  3 people were in a trailer behind the tractor and they seemed to be sifting the potatoes from the dirt.  It was interesting to watch for a few minutes.  We also saw a tractor carrying huge peppers in the shovel part of his tractor.  I’ve never seen such big peppers!

Left foot soaking in epsom salts with Tea Tree oil

My blisters and sore tendon problem are pretty much gone now, but Curtis developed problems with his left foot.  His little toe was being pushed underneath the next toe and was becoming increasingly painful.  It looked like a blood blister was under the toenail.  A nice Australian couple at our albergue offered some salts for Curtis to use to soak his foot in hot water and then cold water, back and forth.  They also put a few drops of tea tree oil in the water.  They were very kind to offer some help. I took a picture and sent it in a text to Dr. Joshua Marshall in Albuquerque and he gave us some good advice on how to get through the last 4 days of the camino.  No need to run to a doctor here. It will heal.  Whew!


We weren’t able to wash our clothes last night because we got to Mazarife too late, so today we had even more clothes to wash.  We had to hand wash them in the courtyard but this place had a machine that spun the clothes to get most of the water out.  It was very helpful and we were amazed at how much water was spun out, even though we thought we had wrung them well.  I felt bad about using up so much room on the drying racks, so we hung our underclothes in between the bunks in our room (we had a “private” room with 2 bunkbeds, but we were the only ones in the room).  The other clothes are outside on the rack and we found another rack that we took out to the street in the full sun and wind.  They are drying very quickly now.   I sat on a bench enjoying the afternoon sun. 

Albergue Villares de Orbigo and the bench where Michelle sat and wrote
in her journal while our clothes dried in the breeze and sun.

 It is a nice peaceful town, but it also has some life.  The local men were in the bar across the street talking, drinking and playing games.  That was nice to see during siesta.  When siesta ended, 4:00 pm, we went to the Farmacia and the pharmacist suggested a gel type of wrap that slips over the toe and protects it.  She didn’t see any sign of infection, so the salt water baths helped with that because his toe looked better than it did when we first got to the albergue.   The pharmacists are like doctors here and have been very helpful to us.  

We enjoyed a nice home-cooked communal dinner and enjoyed talking with the other pilgrims.  We especially enjoyed talking with a Canadian couple from Ontario.  They were very interesting people and conversed well on different topics.  

Curtis writes:  The highlight of this day's trek was the bridge at Hospital de Orbigo, and the adjacent jousting ground.

The place we stayed last night was also quite quaint and we would definitely come back to it. It was run by a lady from Belgium. There were about 22 guests there that night. Two were from Korea, 3 were from Australia, 2 from France, 3 from Ireland, 3 from Brazil, 2 from Canada, 2 from Germany and 4 of us were from the US.

Most of us participated in the communal dinner served by our Hostess from Belgium. It was a three-course meal starting with a cream of zucchini soup followed by a salad with fresh melons and tomatoes and after that there was chicken stew with potatoes and Chicken on the bone.

During dinner we sat across from the couple from Canada. He had been a banker and then changed careers to be a school principal in a small town in the province of Ontario. We found them quite interesting to talk to. While hiking, he hurt his foot and so rather than wait around two days for it to heal they rented bikes and rode the bikes through most of the meseta which is the flat section of the trail. It was interesting to learn that such a thing could be done. The bikes came with all of the equipment they would need to store their stuff while cycling.

Part of the discussion included the question of why it is so rare to see children in the streets in these little towns. We are finding that the town's are slowly being abandoned and that young families move to the city.

On a less appealing topic there have been problems developing with my little toe. I took my shoe and sock off in the courtyard of the albergue and the hostess came by and noticed it. She said: "That needs to be soaked." Then an older gentleman from Australia saw it and recommended that I soak it in hot water and then in cold water and then in hot water again and again. This Australian is a cross between Jimmy Durante and Crocodile Dundee. 

So we took one of the laundry buckets and the hostess filled it full of hot water and we took another one and put cold water in it. Then the Australian  brought down some salt that he poured in the water and also some tea tree oil.  I soaked my foot alternatively in hot and cold.  It helped soothe the ache, but it did not solve the problem, since it's a structural issue with the shape of the foot and the shoe.

Later in the afternoon, we visited the town pharmacy.   We asked about Epsom salts.  There was some available for us but she (the pharmacist) said if you are pilgrims you don't want to carry this. You should simply ask the albergue for some table salt.  She took a close look at the toe and recommended a silicone sleeve, which we bought for a few euros.

El Camino de Santiago - 2017

Day 18: Leon to Villar de Mazarife

Michelle wrote:
24 Sept. Sunday

Laundromat in Leon

We woke up at 8:00 am and got my backpack down to the neighboring albergue for pick up by Jacobtrans. We'd missed the pick up at the hotel. 30 minutes later we checked out of the hotel and saw my bag picked up and put on the van. Whew! Barely made it! We went to the nearby lanudromat and put our clothes in the washing machine.

Curtis went to find the church, which we knew was close by, and I stayed with the clothes.  I was starting to get concerned because the clothes were almost done and he had the money for the dryer and we needed to finish in time for church.  When he came back he said that the mission president was finishing an interview with a missionary just as Curtis walked into the church.  The mission president, Pres. Kevin Pack, used to live in the Collins Hill Ward!  They moved out in 1997, three years before we moved in.  His wife Cindy was the first RS president of the newly created Collins Hill Ward.  They are good friends with a lot of our good friends from that ward.  Small world once again.  

Curtis & Pres. Pack at
 the chapel in Leon

There was no Sacrament meeting that day because it was District Conference and it was held at a hotel just up the street a bit.  We got the clothes dried quickly (very efficient machines!) and walked to the hotel, which was on our way out of town anyway.  Perfect!  It was a good thing Curtis found out where the church was early, or we would have missed the conference.  It started 30 minutes earlier than Sacrament meeting would have started.  



After church we started the walk out of Leon.  I liked Leon.  We walked through the suburbs and industrial parts of the city.  We didn’t see hardly any pilgrims.  They’d either already passed through or were stopping in Leon for the day.  After 8 km of this, we realized that we hadn’t eaten lunch, so we stopped for a bocadillo and lemonade.  Things felt better after that!  

Plaza de Santo Domingo and facinating building we passed as we were leaving Leon

We took to the optional path that took us away from the highway.  The land has changed again and there aren’t very many plowed fields or any type of active agriculture.  We passed through 2 small villages and saw a total of 3 other pilgrims.  One was an interesting woman from Belgium who had a lot of flag patches of the counties she’s visited.  The 4 km brought us to Villar de Mazarife - a 21 km walk from our hotel in Leon.  We left Leon at 12:30 and made it to Mazarife at 5:30.  

We were happy that we were able to walk 21 km in 5 ½ hours!  I was worried that my leg wouldn’t hold up for that long and I’d have to slow down, but my leg didn’t tighten up at all!  A blessing for making church a priority today? Sure! I’ll take it!

Our albergue is called Tio Pepe’s and it is okay. It’s probably considered a good one, but we had just spent the night in a very nice hotel. It wasn’t fair to compare it to the hotel. It was still better than the dormitory rooms. The private rooms are nice but expensive. This one cost 50 euros. We had to repack our packs before going to bed. We plan to leave early in the morning.

Pres. Kevin Pack of the Spain Madrid Mission after District Conference in Leon 

Pres. Pack wrote the following on his Facebook post:
"This past Sunday I was able to attend a conference of my church in León, Spain. I always enjoy these gatherings and leave spiritually renewed as I gather with friends and fellow believers, and this was certainly the case on Sunday. In addition, about an hour before the conference began, I met a man named Curtis Whetten from Georgia who was walking the Camino De Santiago with his wife. As we spoke, we discovered that we had many friends in common back in Georgia. It made me think about one of the great blessings of being a member of the Church of Jesus Christ. Because of my membership in the Church, I have friends literally throughout the world, wherever I go. Paul's words to the Ephesians indeed rang true to me that day...."Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellowcitizens with the saints, and of the household of God; And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone." (Ephesians 2:19-20) I am grateful to belong to The Church of Jesus Christ, built upon a foundation of apostles and prophets, with Christ himself as the chief cornerstone."

Curtis writes:
Our time in Leon was too short for the things we wanted to do. We prioritized and got the most important things done. Another year we can tour the cathedral and maybe even attend an organ recital there. THAT could be awesome.

Rio Bernesga on the west side of Leon

As with most of my blog entries, the photos are posted in the order they were taken. We didn't take our "morning selfie" until after doing the laundry, and after attending Church meetings and after hiking west, across the Rio Bernesga, out of Leon and up the hill side in the adjacent community of Trobajo del Camino (yes, spelling is correct). Finally at this point we remembered to take the picture.
In Leon I was able to replace the hat that I left on the west side of Bercianos del Camino (most likely).

Just a note about style: I liked my other hat better.

It was nice to have a good walking surface.

This is the first field we came across with this unique pattern in the soil.

Dove coat on La Meseta

You can see this spot in Google Maps when this tree was still green.
Dove cote near Villar de Mazarife

Welcome to Villar de Mazarife

This mosaic mural welcomes pilgrims near the entrance to Villar de Mazarife.  Though the technique is ancient, this is a modern work of art.

We stayed at Albergue Tio Pepe.  The reviews rated it highly.  My experience was not quite the same.  We had our own room with a private bathroom.  That was nice.  Unfortunately, it was right over the bar.  So, like the night before in Leon, there was a lot of noise that kept me up: a loud TV and a passionate discussion between a couple of bar patrons.  Finally, around 10pm (which is really late for pilgrims but not late at all for the men in the bar) I went down and asked if they could turn the TV down a little.  The dormitory where most of the other pilgrims were staying was across the small courtyard, so they were not bothered by the noise.

Albergue Tio Pepe