The Stone Site

Getting up at four in the morning, then walking trough high, wet gras and cobwebs doesn’t make you utterly happy. But hearing the birds, seeing the sun rise makes you absolutely much happier.

In our after-life (after doing the walking), we try to visit a museum, a monastery or so. Here in Astorga there are plenty of them. And Astorga as such is a very sweet and happy town, reminds me a bit of southern Germany and the romantic cities along Mosel or Rein.

However I have recently tried to study the faces of statues or in paintings. Of course I don’t want to be rude, blasphemous(?) or negative – but I can’t see any happy people!

Yes – In some situations you can’t and shouldn’t absolutely not put up a smile!! But if you going to be represented by a statue for the rest of your life – can’t you at least look a bit happy, it’s not everyday you are recreated in stone or? And for hours and hours looking at all the gloomy people doesn’t make you happier either.

So why is it like this? Is it so that people looking happy are seen as dumber, more stupid or complete morons? I don’t now, I’m just about curious why all people need to look so gloomy.

Then I have found my favourite picture here in Astorga. Again, please no offence, but I would like to call this picture; “Another day at work”. And the question is if course, who are you in this picture…

Ohhh, back to the Camino walk after some nice days being able to sleep to seven or eight in the morning. So up early at four, packing and fixing the feet and then out in the night around five together with the late party people. However compared to Burgos, people in León are definitely not that hot on partying!

Then at eight, finding a nice breakfast place – this week it’s Bull run in Pamplona so you can guess what’s on the morning program?!

We think we have figured it out, despite not knowing any Spanish. So in the studio the commenters(?) talks about the run, the support staff (doctors and others) show how they will take care of the injured ones and then highlights from the run are shown. It’s absolutely like a big sport event!

I’m a bit moderate so I run with the hens…

The hotel for today is more than rural so they hens are running around in the hotel garden with the guests. The roosters have their own fenced place – and there’s a lot of fighting going on there!

Well that’s about it this Camino day. Some days you walk amongst the Gothic Cathedrals and some days you walk with Spanish chicks!

PS

In our after-life we had a very nice pilgrim menu at this place. Of course a very tasteful home made hen paella and guess where that hen came from? … Well that’s life and perhaps how it should be!

León is the last big city before reaching Santiago and therefore we have an extra day off, taking a deep breath and then walk all the way. Let’s see how that turns out!

In our preparations a stop at Burger King is a must. We haven’t seen a burger place since we left Sweden. And I understand why. The place where fully ok, no problem, but no wine, no pilgrim menu and a bit expensive. Wonder why no one have put up a Spanish burger chain, “Burger Bull”, with tortilla, and some chilli pepper!

To take a last look at León without working our legs off (?), we took the city train and had a look at a lot of nice places. It’s a beautiful city!

Otherwise we are working hard with the siesta and doing nothing while we have the opportunity. Tomorrow we hit the road again and then again and again until our muscles feels like iron like this family! Right now they are more like a rubber band that’s snapped….

As mentioned before I regret not doing a crash course in Spanish before starting the Camino. León is quite a big city and has a very fine museum with paintings, sculptures etc but every description, explanation in Spanish not even the exit signs are in English. So now I have seen a lot of which I don’t know nothing

We should of course understood that Claustro in the sign at the entrance has something to do with claustrophobia. There was not so many visitors, you where not allowed to take photos and there was a Spanish lady opening each room for you, then locking it and then after a while unlocking it and let you out! Very strange – happily for us we don’t suffer from Claustro and they had a lot of cameras so I don’t think the forget to let people out, but you never know!

But it’s not hopeless, did see this place, here it should absolutely be possible to have a talk in English.

This day has otherwise been a day of rest and resting we have! Went to a very nice jamon Bar, for each beer you order you got a ham tapas automatically. Didn’t understood that first so being a bit thirsty I got to eat a lot of tapas. You know – if you don’t eat you tapas you can’t have any beer! But I’m happy about that since it was so very good and tasteful tapas.

The only thing is that you get a little bit tired eating so many tapas so it’s soon bedtime!

Lessons learned from yesterday – start walking as soon as possible in the morning. To do that you have to be early in bed. The Night Life of Reliegos took about 5 minutes, all bars closed except one, so that part went fast.

But as you know, after a few hours we need to get some coffee!! And that’s a bit tricky. Most places are closed.

Or should I say the look closed. When we arrived here there where no bicycle, door was closed and the place looked really locked down. But that is just a trick of the owner!! With a littler bit of force you can crash in through the door, to find a very hospital and friendly owners. And the coffee and morning bocadillo was super nice. Just before leaving the bull run in Pamplona started so we had a look at this on the TV together with a lot of people, all of them surprised as we that the place was open! But know we now for the future, just crash in!

So after coffee, we started to walk again, up and down, long road, left road, right road and then, when we did see the light in the tunnel getting closer to town. The road stopped!!!

We had to do a detour. You know how addicted I am to the app, and here you can see the sidetrack we now was going for. It’s one thing driving in a car where you just can turn on the air conditioning and tune into your favourite station. But walking – Mama Mia every extra step hurts – walking some extra kilometres is not a bonus you look forward to!

Well, after some hours(?), heavy up-hill walking we “the blue dot” was back on track again. At the first BAR we stopped and found the three lovely ladies from Orisson there too (however now they where only two of them left). Big Country, small world! So after a double KAS Naranja and some chitchat we where in happy pilgrim mode again!

Then it was just a few kilometres left to the city and the hostel. And here we are, taking the siesta as seriously as possible with some snacks and fresh orange juice. Yes, the supermarkets here in León are a bit different than in the countryside. There is a machine that automatically creates juice from oranges. You just pick the bottle, put it in the machine and press the handle and the magic starts. It’s amazing! Next time I have to test if it works with coconuts too!