I don’t know how this happened, since I lived in and still love Portland, a relatively large city. But it was a big relief to get out of the city of Leon, and get back in the country and on the trail.
The trail today was not tranquilo and in fact followed a major road that links two sizable cities – León and Astorga. So it was car and truck noise the entire walk, but for some reason I was happy to be back walking and back on my own.
The noisy trail made the arrival to my current spot, Hospital de Orbigo, even more beautiful. This is a great pilgrim town and I have had all kinds of fun meeting the locals and walking around town. There is a very long puente (bridge) as you enter town that has rich medieval history, very Don Quixote, so that makes this town romantic and historic. I love it.
Since I didn’t take a day off in Leon and I did a longer day than my other pilgrim friends, many of the pilgrims here are new faces to me. (Edit: I ran into Yvonne who I met in Hontanas on my first night, and also Judit from Hungary who I have run into a lot lately. Judit is very nice and if I spoke Hungarian I think we would be chatting it up big time. We three had a pilgrim meal last night before I snuck away to watch some soccer.)
This morning I had the best cafe con leche of the trip… in a working suburb of Leon. It was very early (still dark out) as I was walking by, there was this beacon of light from a ho hum bar. I could see from across the road that the bar was packed with workers and policemen. It looked perfect, so I went in and elbowed my way to the bar to order… and it was the best coffee of the trip to date. Between the atmosphere, the early hour and the haven from the darkness – it was magical.
Amy's Camino 