Hot walk to Villar de Mazarife

Well it seems our cold spell has ended...it was cool as we walked out of León this morning, but we knew it would heat up and it did...it was a 22+km walk and after almost 2 hours of walking through the boring outer suburbs of León we went on a very exposed track across easy terrain, but not spectacular scenery. Sometimes it was not unlike Australian countryside ...you wouldn’t have been surprised to see a kangaroo....except the scattered trees were usually oaks, not eucalypts. Anyway, we are here, in a small Hostal called Tio Pepe, washed and clothes on the line. Many of our Camino family are here, but at the moment it is unwinding and downtime. Sadly I think we are now out of sync with Melanie and Jim as they are on another route to Astorga, our destination on Sunday and will be a day ahead of us....this is what happens...

No pictures of the walk today, but I might find some more from León, but maybe not as the wifi is very weak. It is Friday today, and they are setting up stands everywhere in the main plazas of León, and we realise that this weekend it will be the huge festival that we struck 5 years ago (as we were there on a weekend) with parades, and huge banners from all the localities of León province, and the associated chaos! I am not too sad to miss it this time, though Amr would probably have embraced it!

This has been the first of 9 days of walking till we get to O Cebreiro, where we will again spend 2 nights.Read more