León to Villar de Mazarife

Well, we did it. I´m tainted. The stink of tire rubber is on me. Sigh.

It was pretty tough to get on that bus, I´m tellin´ you. After I posted, I went back to the bar...because what else was there to do...and we sat some more. And we watched the pilgrims roll in. I felt so guilty not to walk yesterday...but apparently everyone else takes a day off, and even if mine was forced, I guess I needed it too. We started seeing familiar faces. Gunnar showed up, and later, Al, and Christa too!!! It was wonderful to see Al and Christa again because it had been a while...since Burgos!! They had stories of Estelle, and she finally got there too, which amazed us all...she´s indomitable.

We had a couple new people...this French girl Charlotte from Normandy...in my head, she´s Joan of Arc. She was this little waiflike creature with hair sticking up all over her head...she looked about 12 but was 28...tiny little thing. She was crazy. Her Spanish was better than her English, so most of our conversation was a hodgepodge of both. She managed to communicate to me that she´d been doing shots that morning at 7am. She went to the nuns where we stayed last night and bargained to sleep outside in the garden for free. Then she decided she wanted to make crepes for dinner. We told her it´s Sunday, the stores are closed. She said no problemo. She went off into town and came back with a sack full of ingredients. Turned out she went begging at doors until someone gave her milk, flour, eggs...everything. Hysterical.

There was this guy Matt from Dundee, Scotland. I sat by him and tried to get him to talk because I love Scottish accents so much and hadn´t heard one in forever. Wouldn´t you know, I get a shy quiet one. ;) He was lovely, though...I finally did get him to talk some. I was lovin´ it.

The bus came half an hour late, and suddenly, it was a flurry of activity. Hugs, yelling, a few tears, pictures, throwing bags into the luggage compartment, the driver hollering at us to hurry, Christa not wanting to let go of us, Al telling me ¨Enjoy your life...use all the time that you have,¨ in his thick German accent...and when we finally made it to the bus door, the driver shut the door right on me, like he was going to drive off without us. Jackass. Skip was furious. But we wrestled our way on and watched through the back window as our friends disappeared behind us.

So the fellowship is broken....

Isn´t that what they say in Lord of the Rings when everyone parts ways?

Sigh. Swear to God...after 18 days without wheels, tracks, or wings, I got a little motion sickness on the bus, to go with my heartsickness at watching four days´ walking swallowed up by the diesel engine of the bus. HUGE fields of sunflowers on the way. Message from Felix tonight on Facebook...at least we know they´re only a day behind. I´m tempted to park myself somewhere at a cafe and wait until they show.

But anyway, we got to León and managed to locate the albergue with the nuns, like John said to do. John said there was a lovely pilgrim´s blessing. Unfortunately, by the time we got there, it was 9:15 with a 9:30 door closing time, and we´d had no dinner and had passed a BK five minutes before we arrived. We looked at each other and knew in a heartbeat...it had to be done. We both vowed that neither of us do this at home, but a Whopper just sounded too good. So we had a choice...pilgrim´s blessing by Benedictine nuns, or Whopper. Hate to say it, but the Whopper won. And here´s a tip...the Spanish get the Whopper meal right. ;)

This albergue was different in that the men and women were separated into different dorms. Felt strange not to have guys in the room that I knew, especially Skip. He´s usually in the bed next to mine or below mine or across the room from mine, but there. It helps because we get each other moving in the morning. This time, I was on my own and I have no alarm, so it´s a matter of wake up or don´t wake up.

Tip: I have not yet needed my sleeping mat, but three or four nights now, I´ve longed for a pillow, as sometimes there are none.

We left the albergue this morning at 7:30, heading for the Cathedral of León. Byron, if your sci-fi-fantasy radar went off last night at 11pm, it was because I saw the most awesome pewter King Arthur´s Knights of the Round Table set in a shop window, complete with BOMB Round Table. Sigh.

The Cathedral was not anywhere near as impressive as the one in Burgos. It was open in the center all the way through, not a maze like the one in Burgos. But the stained glass was beautiful, as were the choir stalls and the marblework on the rostrums.

I wanted to see the cloister walk in the Basilica of St. Isadoro, too, and the Camino went right by it. We hit the gift shop and found out there was a tour...in Spanish. So in we went. It looked pretty...and had a library filled with HUGE AWESOME 1200 YEAR OLD LEATHERBOUND BOOKS...maybe the coolest thing I´ve seen so far. I couldn´t tear myself away, they were beautiful.

The cloister walk was cool, but Burgos was better. We got lots of good pictures.

Out of León. Took forEVER. Felt good to be walking again after 44 hours. León dragged on forever and ever...we hit a supermarket and got tomatoes and bread and cream cheese and ham and salami for lunch...Philly makes any bocadillo AWESOME.

The rest of the day was uneventful...other than the fact that we´re once again walking through natural landscape, which is wonderful. We had some beautiful views today, and we can see the mountains in the distance. We have a few ahead of us...day after tomorrow is a lot of up and the following is a lot of down.

We made it to Villar de Mazarife and picked the Albergue de Jesús. With a pirate ship in the yard. And a pool. Which it was once again too cool for me to jump into, but Skip went for it. It´s pretty nice here in this one...the surrounding area looks like Texas. A whole lotta nothin´.

We went hunting a supermarket in town and took the longest route possible. I´ve found out that trying to teach an Australian to speak Spanish is a lot like that episode of Friends when Phoebe tries to teach Joey French. You just have to see it. I´ve determined their mouths are not capable of making some sounds, and that´s just the way it is. Either that, or Skip is REALLY special. ;) We decided to cook (read: SKIP decided to cook; most of us know how proficient I am in a kitchen) and words can´t describe his attempts to ask for fresh parsley. We collected another hodgepodge of whatchagot and ended up with a GORGEOUS sauce to go with the pasta I nabbed in Agés when someone left it behind. That boy is a master.

Skip told me we´re shooting for a 6am start tomorrow. I told him everything about that sentence was fine with me except for the pronoun. 6AM??? We have 31k to go tomorrow to Astorga...either that or we wuss out and stop at 18k somewhere else (I don´t have my book on me). We´ll see. He´s going to call the boys tomorrow and find out what we can do to meet up...which we decided was cheating unless they contacted us, and since I just got a message from Felix, we´re good to go.

All for now. This guy has been waiting ages to get online, so I need to wrap it up and go to bed. By the way...tonight´s bed is a mattress on a second-story, outside deck. I´m kinda excited. As long as I can find a spare wool blanket somewhere....

Love you all.