I pushed it today. I walked 24km. My pace slows considerably after the first 15km. It was a very long walking day. I didn't get to town until 5:00ish.
I dragged out the long walk by stopping to pick the beautiful ripe blackberries that lined the camino. At one point I leaned a little to far, lost my balance and fell arm first into a blackberry bush. A passerby got a good chuckle and I got quite a few new scratches on my right arm.
An old festooned wine press because I am again walking through wine country
The camino split off to more small towns but I chose to walk by the road (because it was shorter) till it rejoined the camino later. Just as my path merged back with the camino there was Vance and his wife Theresa. Theresa joined Vance back in León and had end outed some long rough days of walking to keep up with the pace of Father Anthony's group.
Upon entering town we passed the municipal albergue without seeing it. The next albergue we came to has a bad reputation as being dirty and loud so we passed on that one. Vance and Theresa decided to stay at a hotel on the central plaza.
The third albergue was on the other side of town and disappointingly it was full when I got there. There was another lady there who asked the receptionist about another place to stay. We chatted while the receptionist made a few inquiries. Stene (like Christine without the Chri-) is from Denmark and works with special needs adults. She had just arrived in town by bus from Madrid and tomorrow was her first day on the camino. The only thing available was a fancy hotel if we split the room it would be €30 each. I didn't want to walk back across town to "maybe" a bed at one of the albergues or leave Stene stranded. And it would be nice to indulge a little.
This hotel is amazing. It has an elevator and everything. I took a bath in a bathtub for the first time and almost 2 months. It was decadent to soak luxuriously in the warm water. The bath towels are huge, soft and clean and smell like almonds. The sheets on the bed smell like almonds too. Why don't my linens at home smell like almonds?
Stene and I went of dinner at one of the bars around the main town plaza, called El Casino. I chose some local pork product with peppers for my starter. It was cold and gelatinous, not what I was expecting. The taste was ok but I couldn't get over the fact it was not warm. Stene said her soup was good though. The second course was a simple plate of seared chicken breast with fries. Nothing exciting but the chicken was perfectly cooked. There were two options for dessert homemade custard or some king of cake. I chose the cake and Stene, the custard. The cake was more like a slice of flan and the custard was vanilla with cinnamon. I don't like flan and Stene didn't like her custard so we swapped. Neither dessert was that great.
We returned back to the hotel and slept well in the comfy beds under clean sheets and down comforters.
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