Day 32. Villa de Mazarife to Hospital de Orbigo

The last to leave after a lavish breakfast. At 8:45h into a beautiful fresh morning. A lot of straight road to begin with. Then a farm track which, after a few bends, was also straight.

Made it. But much later than expected. 10 km without a pause - just stop once for taking off my jacket, buff and gloves and once to talk to some members of a Dutch walking group whom I had met during dinner at our albergue last night. Half of them are blind and the others in equal numbers walk with them. Each one of the blind persons has his/her own carer during the day's walk, but not the same carer every day. The different "twos" may walk with others of the same group or alone. They meet up all of them together again only when they arrive at their destination in the evening. This takes careful organisation: each blind person wishing to take part is carefully checked for suitability: physical and mental capacity. The same goes for the voluntary carers.

I had noticed one twosome walking alone and later came across three twosomes who had stopped together - one of my short stops to ask a few more questions.

So after 10 km I had this hour long pause in the only village on the way, Villavente. The bar was full of the early pilgrims - palaver with them. Then another lot arrived - more palaver.

Another 5 km and I arrived only at 2 o'clockish. And my hotel is right by the bridge - in 2016 when I walked the combination End of Via de la Plata plus San Salvador I had had breakfast in this hotel with a view over the bridge in the rising sunshine.Read more