Being woken by annoying early risers that then sit around talking and crumpling plastic bags neither amuses me or brings out my most charming side… (The cogs in my mind turn and begin to devise mean ways of retaliation). At present I’m toying with the ideas of airhorns, fire alarms or some loud rap. Of course there’s always the option of getting drunk on Jäger-bombs and letting me loose in the dorm, but there’s a high probability that would lead to me being arrested?!
Ok, so I’m up and leaving by 6.30am. The morning was refreshing but not cold. We don’t have a plan of where to stop today, I don’t know if it’s a good or bad thing. Walking through a couple of small villages in quick succession, we pass from the province of Palencia to that of León. After this we can see the town of Sahagún up ahead. Our path today is mainly gravel alongside roads, (not overly exciting again). Arriving in Sahagún so early in the morning (8.45am), we don’t stop to view it’s history. It’s a shame as I believe it has some interesting history. Instead we carry on to the outskirts of Calzada del Coto, here the Camino divides and as we try to establish which route is which, the clouds disperse and the sun shines. We start again taking the Real Frances route as it passes more villages along the way. The landscape stretches out in all directions and as we continue, grey clouds appear on the horizon in two directions.
It’s nearing 4pm, we’ve been walking for nearly ten hours, with a few quick coffee breaks. The clouds are getting heavier as we enter Reliegos, combined with aching muscles, sore feet and hunger pangs we agree it’s time to stop. We’ve walked 44km, it’s been a long day and now it’s raining. All I want to do is go to bed…
Unfortunately I don’t get my wish as we find some of our Camino friends are here at the albergue so we sit around chatting for far to long. I haven’t even showered!
Hence why the blog is a day late…