Leon to San Martin del Camino (23 km)

We got up late since we had our own room and no one kicking us out.  We left at around 9:30.  We stop at an ATM to get some cash.  It doesn't work.  Try another one, it doesn't work.  We see our Canadian friends from the train from the day before.  They suggest trying the Santander bank.  We try that one, but no luck.  Rachel decides that Bank of America must have put our card on hold.  We are down to 27 Euros cash and no one on the Camino takes a credit card.  Great.  There is a number on the back of the card that says to call it collect when out of the country.  The problem with that is that we do not know how to call collect in Spain.  Rachel tries to decipher the instructions on the phone to see if it explains, but it doesn't seem to.  Rick James (what we call our Spanish phrase book.  It is really a Rick Steve's Spanish phrase book, but we like to refer to it as Rick James, as in, "I'm Rick James, B*tch" from the Chappelle Show") does not seem to have instructions or even a word or phrase for calling collect.  So trying to talk to the operator probably wouldn't go so well.  Rachel knows that the newsstands sell phone cards, so she decides that we can buy an international phone card, and then just call the toll free U.S. number.  After having Bank of America hang up on us, we finally get it all resolved, and after an hour and a half delay, we hit the ATM and we are on our way.

Rachel seems to be doing much better today.  She has compeed on both of her feet to cover the blisters/raw spots.  The walk through Leon is pretty nice.  We stopped at a fruiteria to get some apples for a late breakfast.  Once out of Leon we go through an industrial park.  Looks just like an industrial park in the U.S..  Then we walk through an area that is exactly like walking along the access road on I-85 near Jimmy Carter Blvd. where all the furniture warehouses/stores are.  We are walking along an access road next to a highway and everything.  This is apparently where the people of Leon come to buy their furniture.  Then we walk through several non-scenic towns.

The entire day is hiking next to a major road, sometimes just on the shoulder of it.  It kind of sucks.  We should have taken a train past this part as well.  We stop in a bar in San Miguel for lunch.  Had more bocadillos and claras.  This time the clara was made with Casaera (which Rachel says is kind of like Diet Sprite).  It was not as good as the one made with lemon soda.  After lunch it is more of the same walking along the side of the major road.

Rachel held up pretty well.  We met some Brits who were just section hiking to Villadangos.  They were holidaying in Northern Spain and hiking a little along the way.  No one told them that this section sucks.  Talking to them helped us tough it through this section.  in Villadangos we split from them and headed another miserable 4km to San Martin.  Rachel calls it quits.  We are supposed to get to Hospital de Orbigo, but she is starting to hurt and we decide that it is best to stop.  We end up at Albergue Viera, owned by a husband and wife.  The guy was very nice.  Rachel said that the lady is a stereotypical Spanish woman, rather pushy.  We only did 25 km today so Rachel can have some extra time since she isn't healed up yet.  We are walking slower than normal right now.  This albergue is pretty nice.  Only 4 Euros each.  They sell a bottle of wine for only 2 Euros which we enjoyed.  I am looking forward to tomorrow.  Only a little bit of following the road left.  Once we get to Astorga (another 24 km), our guide book says that the next 50 km is supposed to be one of the prettiest sections of the Camino.  The meseta was nice up to Fromista, but since the hiking has been more of a slog and rather boring.

As for Spain, I've never seen such use of wind power.  There are wind farms everywhere.  Also we have seen lots of solar panels.  They are big on renewable energy.  They also are big on conservation.  In all of the bathrooms, the lights are on motion detectors.  You can't sit too still on the toilet or the lights will go out on you. Then you have to wave your arms around and try to get it to come back on.  Also, there is very little turf grass anywhere.  I guess they know it takes a lot of resources to maintain.  We could learn a lot from them.  Also, the culture seems to be very encouraging of getting outside.  In the plazas, people of all ages are out all the time.  In the evenings children are riding bikes, their parents are chasing them, and older people are sitting on benches chatting.  There are A LOT less overweight people.  Probably because they seem to walk so much more.  Rachel says that in the outskirts of some of the bigger cities, they have some stores like wal-mart, but overall, you have to go to a separate store for most everything.  There are some "supermarkets", but you get better quality stuff if you go to the separate stores for fruit, meat, fish, bread, medicine, clothing, etc.  You don't just drive up to Target and get everything you need.

Hopefully we can get in 32-34 km tomorrow.  There is nothing to do in this town so we make it an early night to get an early start tomorrow.

San Nicolas del Ral Camino to Leon (7.5 km on foot, 55km by train)

It looks like our push cost us the war.  Rachel's feet are still in bad shape.  Bad enough that she got on the internet in the alburgue this morning and found a train in Sahagun that will take us to Leon.  The thought is to skip 55km and get a day ahead of our schedule out of Leon.  I am not excited about this, but she is in bad shape.  We have a long discussion about this, but her mind is made up.  She told me that I could go on walking and meet her in Leon, but I'm not dumb enough to believe that.  Besides, we would then still be on our same schedule and it is doubtful that she can continue hiking such long days.  It is a pretty demanding schedule and I am feeling the effects of it as well.  My hip aches and so does my knee at times.  I am having to stretch more to keep my IT band loose.
Rachel has found a cheap train at 2pm out of Sahagun which is only 7.5 km from San Nicolas, so we are in no rush.  We leave around 8:40 for a very uneventful walk.  We are walking along the side of a road.  We make it to Sahagun around 10 and go to the train station to buy tickets.  The ticket desk is supposed to open at 9am, but there is no one there at 10:15.  Some actual Spanish people were also trying to buy tickets, but they gave up and left.  Rachel was determined and was banging on the window and yelling "Necesito billetes!" (I need tickets!).  When we were just about to give up, when a guy finally wanders over to the window to help us.  Rachel gets the tickets and the change that he gives us back equals only paying for one.  He has already closed the window and walked back away by the time we figure this out.  We take it as trail magic and evening out the times that it seems that we have been shorted on change.  I don't know if counting is not important here or what, but quite often the amount that we are supposed to get back in change is off by a few cents, usually in the store's favor.  I don't know if it is an intentional shorting or not, but it is not really worth it, nor are our language skills really good enough, to get our panties in a wad over less than a quarter.

So we have our tickets to Leon for a total cost of 4.33 Euros.  What a deal.  The town of Sahagun is not very impressive.  It feels a bit gritty.  We did find a nice cafe with a nice patio with trees to stop at.  I had a Clara for the first time, but not the last.  It is a mixture of beer and lemon soda.  It is very refreshing and I will be drinking more of these.  While at the cafe we meet a man from Canada who has yachted the intercoastal waterway.  We also met a woman from Holland who was walking for the time being with the Canadian.  We also see Andy here again.  We start going though the guide books to readjust our schedule to shorten our daily distances and I am starting to get over skipping this 55 km section.  The new schedule will allow for less distance and more breaks.  Hopefully this will allow Rachel's feet to get better.

Rachel went to the farmacia and bought some stuff called Compeed for her blisters.  It is supposed to be the best stuff ever for preventing and helping blisters to heal.  We will see.  Also, while waiting on the train, our pen died.  I went all by myself and found a place and bought a pen.  That was a big deal.

While waiting for the train we met 3 Canadians and a German woman.  One of the Canadians had found ripe figs on a tree and shared.  They were good.  The Canadians are from Vancouver and told us that Vancouver is the most expensive city in Canada.  Go figure that Rachel wants to move there.  We also discussed languages with the German woman.  Kids in Germany start to learn English at like 8 years old, then they learn French or Spanish in Middle School, then they learn the other one in high school.  So they graduate knowing 3 foreign languages.  The train to Leon was good.  The tracks actually ran between the "road route"  and the "river route" so we essentially saw what we would have seen anyway.  We honestly didn't miss anything by not walking it.  More flat, more road.

We decide to stay in a pension (kind of like a guest house I suppose. A few rooms with a couple of shared bathrooms and the owner lives in an apartment on the same floor).  It should put us closer to the historical area and we can stay out as late as we want.  Finding the cathedral and our pension was extremely difficult without a map or good communication skills.  We wander around lost for about an hour.  We find the square that the pension is supposed to be on, but can't find it.  A gentleman stops and asks if we need help, we show him the address and he points us to the other side of the square.  Of course at this point Rachel also notices that in our book it tells us that the entrance for the place is on one of the side streets.  Rachel calls up from the street and talks to the owner and we get a room for 30 Euros.  We take showers and head out to explore the city.  We go to the Cathedral and tour it.  It is free to go inside this one.  It is Rachel's favorite because it has tons of stained glass.  I think it is my favorite so far too.  I like how it wasn't chopped up like the one in burgos.  The statues and carvings are amazing.

We walk around the historic district for awhile.  We couldn't go too long with Rachel's feet bothering her.  We get patata bravas at two different places and neither is as good as what we get at Eclipse de Luna in Atlanta.  One had sort of a sour cream sauce, but it was good, just different.  The other was like fries tossed in Texas Pete according to Rachel.  We had some beers and then wen to have "churros and chocolate".  Churros are like donuts and the chocolate is sort of like a melted Hershey bar.  Rachel says that this is like their equivalent to Waffle House after a night out on the town.  We found the chocolate too sweet and heavy.  We won't be getting that again.

The Plaza Mayor here is amazing.  The street surface is marble and has very cool buildings.  Rachel got some good night shots.  After another beer we decide to call it a night at 10:30.  On the way back I feel like a guy is starting to follow us a little too much for my liking.  We end up darting into a Burger King of all places.  He certainly sped up as we were making a break for it.  Not sure if it was really a problem, but better safe than sorry.  Rachel didn't notice him until I mentioned to her that it seemed like he was following.  Overall Leon was really nice.

Villarmentero de Campos to San Nicolas del Real Camino (somewhere between 42-48 km)

Got up at 7.  Didn't feel super great considering the wine we consumed last night.  We were the first ones up.  We got ready and were entertained by the hippies (enjoying each other) in their room while I put on sunscreen in the bathroom.  Adios to our favorite alburgue.  I don't think we will see another one like it.  The first 10km is easy going.  Rachel and I feel good!  We get to Carrion de los Condes around 10 am.  We stop at a pastry shop for breakfast.  Rachel has 2 ham and cheese croissants and a cafe con leche.  I have a ham and cheese crossant, a cream filled coissant and a peach juice.  I ordered the second round of of food by myself until the girl at the counter didn't follow my expected protocol of just giving me what I ordered.  Rachel came over to the rescue and I got what I wanted.  We picked up food at the Dia (a chain of supermercados, with supermercado being sort of a relative term).  A "supermercado" in Spain is about the scale of an Aldi here in the U.S..  We made our way through Carrion which looked to be a very nice town.  Best town since Burgos.  Wish we had more time here, but we don't.  We stop at the farmacia to get more ibuprofen and to purchase some ibuprofen cream that you can't get in the U.S.  The ibuprofens are 600 mg, so that is like taking 3 advil at a time.  The pharmacist made sure to point this out to us.

We head out of carrion around 11 and then begins 17.5 km of pure hell.  It is an old Roman road through the middle of nowhere that is very flat, dusty, and rocky.  Oh yeah, there are gnats too.  There is really nothing scenic at all.  An entrepreneur set up a bar out of a trailer at about the half-way point.  We bought a coke and a beer and ate the bread, sausage, and cheese that we had bought at the grocery store in Carrion.   Andy from the night before caught up and we chatted for a bit.  He builds scenic sets for theaters, but is not working right now.  He is going to look for a job near Santiago, so he has all the time in the world to finish.

At the end of this 17.5 km of nothing, lay about 14 more km of hiking along a main road to San Nicolas.  Rachel broke out her mp3 player to try to pass the time.  We both would sing along when singable songs came on.  Our pace picked up some and several peregrinos laughed as we passed.  But hey, we were having fun and it made the time go faster.  We made it to Terradillos de los Templarios and Rachel is breaking down again.  Right at about 35 km, and 5:15.  She is the model of consistency.  We stop to take a break at the front yard of an alburgue.  We can either stop here or push on.  If we stop that means that we are a total of 15km down.  We deside to gon, which turns out to be a big mistake.  Rachel gets worse.  Big props to her for toughing it out, but I end up carrying her bag the last 3.5 km to San Nicholas.  We arrive at 7:15 after hiking 42 km.  The alburgue is serving dinner at 7:30 so we drop our stuff upstairs and join the other peregrinos for dinner in the dining room.  We sit at a table with a Brit and a German.  The Brit lives in Spain with his gilfriend and they have a baby.  He swapped off taking care of the baby full time while she finished her PhD, for the ability to hike the camino.

After dinner Rachel begins to take care of her feet and they are bad.  She has blisters on both fe and they are very badly swollen.  We won the battle today by making our goal, but may have lost the war.  We are not sure if she can make it the 36km to Religious tomorrow.  We discuss a train to Leon and cutting out 55 km.  I really don't want to, but I don't want her to suffer and be miserable.  This is a vacation after all.

Before going to bed we sit in the common area and look at the route to see what mileage we might be able to cut out.  A French and German guy stop to see what we are doing.  The French guy is trying to tell us that we do not want to take the road route, but rather the river route.  This is what we would prefer to do, but the river route is longer and there is no option to cut the day short along that route.  We compare maps and his map shows the river route meeting up with the road route in a different spot than ours. Trying to discuss is quite hard because no one speaks the same language.  The French guy is very insistant that his map is right and that our 3 maps are wrong.  I understand how the French get their reputation for being pretentious based on this guy.  Hopefully Rachel will feel better in the morning.

Casterojez to Villarmentero de Campos (34 km)

Woke up feeling pretty decent considering that we put in 40 km yesterday.  My calves are the only sore spot.  We up and out by 8am.  This is supposed to be our longest mileage day, 43.3 km to Carrion de los Condes.  We started out great with our first climb over a mountain on the meseta.  The view was great, but covered with fog.  After about 90 minutes we came upon perhaps a bit of trail magic.  There were two guys with a table set up with coffee, cokes, fruit, and pastries.  Rachel asked how much and the guy spoke a bunch of spanish and she got the gist that it was "donativo".  Rachel got a cafe con leche as we both were feeling rather sluggish.  I didn't like it very much.  We made our way to the alburgue at Hospital de San Nicolas.  Our guide book said that the building had nice carvings and that sometimes the Italians running it would give out coffee to passing peregrinos.  Rachel loved the carvings, but they weren't offering coffee.  Through Itero de la Vega we start to show signs of trail fatigue.  I have a spot on my hip that has been rubbed raw from my pack.  Rachel is sunburned on her face and left neck, in spite of 70 spf sunscreen.  We are both just too white. :)

Our goal was to hike 25k to Fromista for lunch so we stopped for a snack between Itero and Boadilla del Camino.  We probably should have gone ahead and stopped here for lunch, but we wanted to try to stay on schedule.  The last 3 km before Fromista were a slog and both of us were starting to hurt.  Fromista was exceptional and had the coolest church we have seen yet, San Martin.  Our book said it was a perfect example of a Romanesque church, and it was right.  Beautifully preserved/restored with amazing detail and carvings.  I doubt we will see one better.  We actually even paid to go inside.  And we did all this before lunch.

After spending 20 minutes trying to decide on a place to eat, I go and screw it all up.  I ordered a pizza which took 30 minutes to get.  It was good, but it wasn't even what I ordered.  I ordered a hawaian pizza and they brought me some sort of veggie/meat one.  It still sucks not to speak Spanish well.  I did pay on my own though without Rachel so I am getting alot better.  I should be self sufficient by the end of the trip.  We left around 3pm so it looked like another 7pm arrival time for us.  The road to Carrion was tedious.  It was a gravel path along the side of a paved road.  I would have loved to have had a bike.  We put in 5km easily, but then Rachel started to struggle after another 3 km.  At the 34 km mark Rachel was completely exhausted and hurting.  Luckily we were coming into Poblacion de Campos.  We figured we could get her a coke and a rest, and then move on.

We plopped down in front of an alburgue that wasn't in our book.  They were playing reggae beat music and there was a garden with hammocks hanging from the trees and real grass.  I knew that if we went in for a drink we were done.  We are looking in our book, figuring out what accommodations might be ahead and this guy comes from across the street.  He speaks English and invites us in.  Turns out he is a peregrino as well.  That is all Rachel needed for her to call it a day at 5:15 and 10k short.  There were two black lab puppies and a couple of other dogs running around playing.  It is like this oasis has appeared out of the middle of nowhere.  Everyone was lounging around, listening to music, and chilling.

We met serveral people, Fermin and his girlfriend Doris from Miami, Andy from England, a couple of hippies from Germany and Italy and the laid back owner.  Rachel nicknames the place the land of misfit toys.  Doris and the hippie girl from Germany both have tendonitis, there is another girl named Rachel who is having knee problems and has been sick.  My Rachel is just exhausted.

We had an excellent time sitting around, lounging, sipping vino tinto and speaking fluent English with people.  Fermin and Doris are fluent in both English and Spanish, so they do some translating amongst the group.  Fermin was laid off and Doris quit her job to come on the camino.  We drank two bottles of wine and then went to bed.  I am worried that we are only on day 2 and are already down 10 km.  I don't know if we will be able to make up for this much lost mileage, but it it was completely worth it for the fantastic evening.

Burgos to Castrojeriz (40km)

This journal will now be in the voice of Chris, because he took over writing because Rachel is a slacker.

Sleeping was great since we only had maybe 4 hours of sleep in the last 30 hours. The only problem was all of the people partying until 5am and me wanting to go join them. That and the 3 guys that kept snoring and waking us up constantly. Ended up getting up around 6:30 because of the many inconsiderately loud peregrinos (pilgrims). There were also loudspeaker announcements wishing us good morning and giving us a countdown to 8am when we had to be gone from the alburgue. We are finally on the trail after days of travel to get here. Rachel has us down for hiking 36 kilometers today to Convento de San Anton, but wants to try to go another 4 km to Castrojerez so that the next day will be shorter (43.3 km). The countryside is very pleasant. Beautiful in its own way. It isn't wilderness hiking, but it is certainly enjoyable. We figured out that we can hike about 5km/hour. This is what we estimated at home, AWESOME!

We bust through 20km before we stop for lunch at Hornillos de Camino. We had to wait 30 minutes before we could get the "menu del dia". Rachel said that she thinks you might get more wine with this one than we got the night before with the menu de peregrino. We did get a whole bottle of wine and a 3 course meal for 19 Euros total. Fantastic! We also have an excellent conversation with an Italian guy that is around our age and an older guy from Holland. The guy from Holland says that he started from his front door and has been walking ever since. Crazy. I wis that I was him. He also said that he hasn't worked in 30 years. I really wish I was him. The Italian guy has hiked the Camino, or parts of it, the last 3 years. He had on a shirt with the Camino symbol on it and a tatoo with the symbol on his leg. He was a fast hiker as he passed us later on that day. He actually spent 3 months living in Roswell, GA in 2008. Small world. This was our first conversation with fellow Peregrinos in English. Also at lunch we met our first American. He was from Phoenix. He questioned us on why were were doing this. We told him because we wanted to see Spain and hike. Then he asked us again why and we told him because we wanted to. He then asked us again and Rachel had to spell it out that we were not religious pilgrims paying a penance or looking for an indulgence, but that we were merely secular pilgrims looking for a hiking trip to experience some culture.

We hike 10 more km and take a break at a bar in Hontanas.  Rachel got a coke.  While she was in the restroom I ordered a small beer and got charged 4.60 Euros!  Pretty sure that I got screwed (Rachel: yes, yes you did).  At least I got a stamp.  Better yet, I ordered on my own.  First time yet.  We probably should have stopped here but we pushed on.  We got to Convento de San Anton.  The guide book listed it as being partially outdoors.  That mean basically it is like an Appalachian Trail shelter.  There are cubbies of rooms in the ruins.  We would have frozen here if we stayed.  The bags we brought can't handle the 40 F nights.  We pushed on to Castrojeriz.  Rachel was hating the last 4km, but we made it at 7pm.  The first two places to stay that we tried were "completo".  Rachel nearly had a meltdown, but we backtracked about 1km to an alburgue at a campground.  It is a big metal barn with bunks.  Nice, good showers and bathrooms.

We try to find the supermercado and finally do at 7:59.  They close at 8.  We grabbed some bannas and donuts for breakfast and a bottle of vino tinto to cap off the evening.  Total cost was 3.04 Euros.  The wine was only 0.87 Euros.  And it was good too.  We watched a little soccer in the bar at the campground.  Barcelona won.  We split a chorizo bocadillo.  Not too bad.  We hand washed some laundry in the laundry sinks and hung it out to dry.  It probably won't.  We showered and then went to bed for our next day which is supposed to be 44.3 km.

Rachel:  Chris says he doesn't remember this, but in the middle of the night a woman came over and woke him up because he was snoring.  She woke me up too because she was shaking the bunkbed that we were sleeping in.  She told him that he was keeping everyone up.  I was too groggy to react, but it was pretty funny in hindsight.