Camino : Léon to Villares de Órbigo

Today it was 32°F, which is 0°C, freezing, and I started walking at about 6:45 AM. Right off the bat, I stubbed my toe three times in a row and lost my way a couple of times. Luckily, the Buen Camino app was my rescuer and eventually I was on the right path.

Last night, the municipal Albergue which had one room with 12 bunkbeds, had a lot of activity. The pilgrims were a little noisy, snoring, waking up multiple times in the night, making it a little hard to get continuous sleep. Interestingly, almost everybody was up, ready and leaving by the time I was leaving.

My goal today was to walk 36 km to the town of Villares de Órbigo.

I came across some beautiful sculptures along the way in the dark.

The temperature dropped. My hands were freezing, even though I had gloves on and then I saw that I was almost half a mile off the course. Seems like the city of Léon was trying to keep me in there. Painfully, I retraced my steps and walked back to catch the trail once again.

I came across a huge church, 'Convento de San Marcos' and stopped to take a quick picture.

In another square was a display of a real airplane and I wondered why it was there.

It was soon well lit and I had almost covered 5km to Trobajo del Camino.

I came across a couple from Wisconsin, they said they were from way up north, near the Canadian border. They were used to the cold but not immune to the -1C temperature we were experiencing. They were retired from their careers in accounting and general contractor work respectively.

After walking for almost two hours amongst the urban setting, I came to the outskirts and walked over a bridge that was on a relatively busy highway. It was interesting to see a traffic police waiting patiently in search of speeders and traffic violators, hiding under the bridge, a somewhat familiar sight in the US.

Almost 11km in, I was at Valverde de la Virgen, which told me that I was soon going to be less than 300km away from my destination and a sign further up announced that the bar was just a few meters ahead.

The book, 'Quiet', by Susan Cain, that I was listening to, was discussing high and low reactive people, introverts and extroverts, collaboration versus individual productivity, pre-frontal cortex and the amygdala, all very fascinating things to learn about.

As I walked past 1 PM, there was nobody on the way. And suddenly one person passed me. She was walking very briskly, and I noticed her to be a tall and slim Scandinavian person. I struck up a conversation and discovered that she was Anne from the south of Oslo, Norway. She had hiking poles with her and had a very quick walk. Although I was walking much slower, I picked my pace up to keep up the conversation.

She was a professor of literature teaching bachelors, master's and doctoral students. She had started from Saint Jean in France a day before me but had taken a one-day break in Léon.

She was very energized with the break and after half a day of break, felt impatient to get back on the road. We walked together to the next town, had coffee, and I left because she needed a bathroom break. However, after 15 minutes, she walked past me and her silhouette became smaller and smaller until I could see her no more over the horizon.

The next town of Villar De Mazarife had a very elaborate tapestry on display.

I passed by yet another interesting metal sculpture that commemorated pilgrims.

The walk became more subdued and there were more farms, flowering cherry-like trees and the beautiful blue sky without a hint of any rain.

On a long and lonely stretch, the pilgrim cutout kept me company.

The map showed that the road up further had a fork and the left side had no places to stop until I completed 50 km walk for the day. I thought that 50km would be a good challenge and was determined to walk that.

I had approached Hospital de Órbigo and saw the church with bells on the top.

The river Órbigo was flowing through the town and it looked very idyllic.

This area was declared as a monument of historical significance because it was previously occupied by the Romans.

As I kept walking, I came across a very nice Albergue almost unexpectedly. I realized that I had taken the wrong side of the road at the fork. This meant that either I continue on and cover more than 50 km for the day or just conclude the day at this point.

I knocked the closed door and entered to find the innkeeper busily making dinner for people who were staying there. For an €18 fee, she offered a bed in the Albergue, a room with 10 beds, all of which were unoccupied.

She also had other rooms in which there was a French brother and sister pair who were walking from France doing a very long pilgrimage. Another person was a British girl who was only doing the section from Leon onwards. she had walked 40 km nonstop from Leon just like me and was very happy to have accomplished that and planned to do a 20 km hike the following day.

The dinner was served at 7 PM and consisted of a very fantastic salad, delicious vegan soup, ratatouille with pork, a fruit salad, dessert. Of course, there was a full bottle of wine on the table as well.

It had been a productive day and I retired early so as to get as much rest as possible before resuming tomorrow.