Day 14 and 15 on the Camino

Leon at 8am

Yesterday, Jess and I hung around Leon until 9am so we could go to mass and get into the cathedral for free and look at the famous painted glass windows in the ''purely Gothic'' cathedral. Because of our late start and various stops in Leon on the way out of the city,  we had to walk the last 10km during the hottest part of the day. At 3pm we made it to the next stop, a city whose name escapes me, but we stayed in the Albergue de Jesus. Despite the holy name, the albergue was a hopping place for both pilgrims and locals. This is the first albergue where we have stayed that actually had the same amount of locals and pilgrims in the bar. The group at the albergue was quite social and our afternoon included some guitar  and ukulele playing as well as a 5pm stretch session for tired pilgrims.

A German from Cologne playing Spanish guitar

Strectching pilgrims

The last evening activity before heading to Astorga: ripping our books in half so we don´t have to carry the half we have already read...

Today we walked 32km to Astorga, a beautiful Spanish city, where I wish I could spend a few more days. The walk to Astorga was long and hot and mostly covered a landscape that looked very similar to Texas down to the fact that there was very, very little shade.

A funny sign seen before our bee encounter

We stopped at 12pm in Villavante for lunch. We couldn´t find any benches in the shade, so Jess and I stopped in the shadow of the church to eat our tomato and chorizo sandwiches. Our location next to the church somehow disturbed an angry black bee that first buzzed around Jess´s head. She gently swatted it away and it left. It returned a few minutes later and buzzed over to me and tried to land in my hair. I, in my panic, did the opposite of what a human should do when attacked by a bee. I tried to swat it away, this made the bee more angry, I tried to get up quickly and run away but I tripped trying to stand up, scraped my barefoot and while I was trying to swat the bee away from my face, it stung me on the hand and then continued to buzz around my head. I ran down the street and around the corner yelling English curse words until the bee gave up following me. I must have made quite the commotion because an old Spanish woman opened her door and asked what was wrong. The bee, or its relatives, had a grudge against Jess and myself because we were harassed by bees until we left the city. I spent the rest of the afternoon dodging every buzzing black insect the flew my way. 

The pilgrims' rest stop on the hill

After the angry bee incident, 7km away from Astorga, we climbed a hill and at the top we encountered an unusual pilgrim rest top. It was a dilapidated house on a hill inhabited by a Spanish budhist. When I asked him if the house was his, he answered: ''my'' is suffering, this is everyone's house.  He was a man of his word; in front of his abode he had a cart loaded with cold water, fruit juices, crackers, cookies, dried figs, cracked hazelnuts, and fresh fruit. He also offered us homemade vegetable curry and yellow rice. When we asked what it costs, he answered ''donativos, si quieres.''  He called his rest stop, La Casa de los Dioses. It is difficult to explain how strange this oasis on a hill seemed at the time. When we came across it we had just walked about 5km up a deserted, brushy path and at the top of the hill we were greeted by a smiling, extremely tanned man in tiny black shorts offering us food and yelling at passing pilgrims: Que te illumines. Todo de esto es el tuyo. He told us he had been offering rest and food to pilgrims for three years. 

J&J after enjoying a bit of shade and food

Jess resting on the grass after a typical bathroom break