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Lindsey’s Belorado to Sarria Adventures (Camino Frances Part II)
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[QUOTE="Lhollo, post: 1037070, member: 93672"] I wanted to post something sooner than this but a combination of events have caused me to delay until now. I’d expected to have time during my rest day in León: this didn’t happen, because of a medical issue. Im also trying to let myself relax fully and not worry about not writing down what I’ve done, even though I both want to share it and want to write it down at least for my own memory. So, bearing that in mind… This is a condensed update! (Please overlook any typos. I’ll try to edit them later but want to get this posted, and find it hard to type on my phone quickly without stupidities creeping in). [U]Calzadilla de los Hermanillos to Mansilla de las Mulas[/U] The main, initial stretch of Roman road was both wonderful and a little gruelling. Wonderful because it was genuinely remote, with no services of any type, and allowed time for reflection, but was also full of wildlife all around. It was both strange and a relief to be away from the procession of pilgrims, at least for a short while. We saw many more deadly carrots! 😃🥕😱 I also loved the wetland areas with frogs and… yes, Reed Warblers. Thank you [USER=38350]@VNwalking[/USER] , you’re absolutely right about those we saw and heard on the way out of Castrojeriz, and they reappeared on this day. We saw hardly any other pilgrims until the end of the stretch, when several groups of French pilgrims passed us at the only rest spot. We were eating crisps at a picnic bench and waved to them with a Buen Camino. I enjoyed thinking about the Roman history, and had a new appreciation for the fortitude of Roman legions, and the vision of their engineers. Reliegos… well, this boils down to Bar Torre/Bar Elvis (why does it have two names?!). It was closed, so I read the graffiti outside including the newspaper articles about the owner. I’d seen a man coming out, who’d told me it was closed, and suddenly realised that the person in the newspaper photos resembled that man. He returned soon after and again told me it was closed but I simply asked if he was Elvis (??? Some things are just so peculiar) and this sparked a one hour conversation in Spanish, with some singing, many stories, and became one of my most memorable experiences so far. What a character! And a really lovely person. Mansilla de las Mulas... We walked into the town with the man we’d found lost the day before. I mentioned him in my previous post, because he’d taken the wrong turn and ended up on the Roman route instead of walking to Bercianos Del Real Camino. We spotted him in Reliegos and I immediately asked how he was and whether it had all worked out ok. He’d ended up turning back, despite being just 2 miles from Calzadilla de los Hermanillos, and walked 44km that day. Despite this, he seemed in good spirits on the way to Mansilla de las Mulas. He hadn’t yet had a rest day since SJPDP, and isn’t a spring chicken. I have much respect for him! I loved Mansilla itself. We stayed at Los Soportales, which I found clean and very comfortable. I liked the town itself but the highlight was the river. We saw huge fish—trout perhaps? Some were green and blue, others orange, brown and yellow—basking in the shallows, staying in one place by swimming into the current. We walked down through the park, trying to reach them, but it was too overgrown. I did bathe my feet in the lively cool water. We had a large early lunch at the Albergue del Peregrinos, then just ate fruit in the evening. [U]Mansilla de las Mulas to León [/U] I mostly want to skip writing about this section because it felt longer than it should have (I’d expected an easy 12-13 mile day) and although there were many lovely moments… well, there was a lot of road, and a lot of urban or suburban sprawl. A highlight was a large snack at the Horno Rústica in Puente Villarente: fantastic empanadas, and our first experience of copious free pastries with coffee, which seems to be a León speciality. Along the route that day, I enjoyed seeing storks in random places, short sections of woodland, greeting other pilgrims, using my monocular on various large birds, and stopping at the water fountain just into Arcahueja: it was a quiet but tranquil spot, and I liked the old stone ‘no potable’ fountain with weeds growing in it, the chess set stone table (why don’t we have those in parks in England?!) and the little sparrows that got into a tussle in a puddle by the fountains, and did actual roly-polyies. I’ve never seen a bird do gymnastics before. Bundles of ridiculous tweeting feathers! León… what a beautiful city! We took time by the walls then walking through the Puerte Moneda, and up to the cathedral, then photographing and filming the exterior. After a drink, we went on to our hotel, which I have to confess was the Parador… because it’s not as though we’ll visit Leon for the first time ever again, plus I had a voucher for Booking.com, plus… well, I love the look of the place and figured that maybe a treat wouldn’t go amiss. I also suspected I might need some medical help by this point, and wasn’t wrong. My sciatica has flared up, which causes referred pain in my feet, and to some extent also legs (oddly not my lower back). This is the thing that, in 2020, stopped me from walking at all, and caused [URL='https://www.caminodesantiago.me/community/threads/trail-runners-altra-or-brooks-or-hoka.68292/']the huge search for shoes even after the one that I posted about here[/URL]. I’ll cut the story short and explain that my rest day consisted of: massage, exploring the Parador, going to El Corte Inglés to buy new shoes because the foam has collapsed in my old ones and I’ve been super-gluing it, dinner and then bed. I have to say though, the Parador in León is *amazing*. I mean, I knew it looked a wonderful building but it’s a palace! I met an English couple with suitcases, wandering around by the entrance to the garden, looking at their phones then back to the garden, then to the facade. I asked if they were looking for something. “The Parador hotel” they said. I pointed to the entrance and said, “Oh yes, this is it”. “Really?” the man replied, “We thought it too magnificent”. The original paintings and tapestries inside are mind boggling for the way they’re just there, with all the hotel and restaurant hustle and bustle going on around them. It was a bizarre but wonderful experience [U]León to Villavante.[/U] This brings me to today. I am exhausted and was in a lot of pain when I walked into Molino Galoches a little earlier today. My new shoes (New Balance Hierros) are better but are an unknown quantity and I’m not convinced they won’t cause blisters—they haven’t yet, and I do know how shoes for me should feel, but my feet are so sore, the pains come and go all over the place—so I’m still carrying my old Nike shoes, even though it’s extra weight. The walk out of León was as you’d expect for a walk out of a city, albeit not as long as some, because that side of the city gives out after just a few miles onto countryside, via the southern Camino route. I really enjoyed that first section to Chozas de Abajo: it reminded me of the Roman road route, for the openness, yellow track, stones underfoot, but it was far busier with pilgrims, many we’d got to know but also many new faces. We stopped in Chozas de Abajo for a snack, and while we were there, a man who is doing the whole Frances with his donkey stopped for lunch too. Later, on the road into Villar de Mazarife, I talked with him quite a lot. He said it took about 15 days at first, to teach the donkey to walk well on roads and through towns. Twice, at first, it ran away. I’d watched it nuzzling him over lunch, and commented that they seemed to have a closeness, almost friendship, and he said that it was getting to be that. Most people we know are staying there tonight rather than doing what we’ve done with the extended walk here to Villavante, but I’m glad not to have a long walk to Astorga tomorrow, with little energy left to see the town (although that may still happen 🤞 ). The section from Villar de Mazarife seemed a little interminable. I don’t mean it was uninteresting because I loved many aspects of it, in particular the frogs, croaking with great urgency from the ditches beside the road. The route was punctuated by joys such as eating cherries and a peach, watching storks and black kites, and various conversations. But a lot of it was very straight, and in such a way that the end of the road seemed to keep moving further away. There were mirages. All of this, and the mental processes involved, were themselves interesting. But… my feet seemed by this point to be pounding on rock instead of gently rolling over a path the way they normally do, plus various other pains. I tried to ignore all this… …And then we made it to Molino Galochas, and the lovely lady here brought us drinks and suggested I put my feet in the fast flowing water channel they have beside the water mill here, and that she’d bring me a towel to dry off… and I wasn’t going to turn down such a suggestion… and the relief of the cold water on my feet hit me so fully that I had a total wobble about the whole business of what I’m doing with this Camino walking malarkey, but in a good way, mostly, rather than a bad one. This is a marvellous Hotel Rural. This evening, we ate outside at the table and benches by our bungalow here. The people are incredibly kind and intuitively know what’s needed. I think they not only look after their guests but almost nurse them… or they’ve done that in some way for me, at least. Tomorrow… a shorter day (thankfully!) to Astorga… and I really hope I can walk, and more than that, have energy left for the Gaudí palace, and the next days too. [/QUOTE]
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