Villavante

We made it out of Leon early today. The main Camino route for today followed next to the freeway most of the way, but an alternative route through the countryside was also available. We gladly accepted the extra mile and a half penalty for a more tranquil days walk.

We will have one more day of walking through flat country to Astorgia tomorrow, and then we start up into the hills. We will bid the Meseta goodbye with relief and look forward to seeing more interesting countryside and less wheat.

We stopped do a break around noon. The restaurant had a long table all set up for a group, with wine bottles already opened and everything. Before we left, a group of maintenance workers from I think the highway department came in and sat down there for lunch. Another example of how they do things differently here, and it’s fine.

We made it the 17 miles to Villavante in mid afternoon, but unfortunately, our backpacks didn’t. The pension we stayed at in Leon didn’t call the backpack forwarding company. The people at the place we’re staying at tonight are really nice and offered to drive back to Leon to get them, but the pension reception desk is already closed for the day. The forwarding company says we should have our backpacks by 9:30 in the morning, so a later start than usual and sweaty clothes tonight. Very minor bummers that will have no overall significance in life.
UPDATE: The owner of the pension, Mercedes, who is a wonderful person and a force of nature that will not be denied, did indeed, without telling us, drive in to Leon with her husband and somehow (no questions) got access to our previous pension and recovered our belongings!

We’re looking forward to Astorgia tomorrow. It’s considered the chocolate capital of Spain. We’ll see what that turns out to be.Read more