Day 44 - Mansilla de las Mulas to León - August 28 On the Camino 24 days

Day 44 - Mansilla de las Mulas  to León - August 28 

On the Camino 24 days

The dinner last night was delicious. A dab of olive oil and fresh vegetables with a few spices. Allison called it Ratatouille, but I thought that was a mouse from a Disney cartoon. I'm obviously not very refined. But it was good, whatever you call it. We had gotten a melon for dessert, but we were too full to eat it. So, we saved it for breakfast. 

I learned something about my self last evening. I was starting to feel irritable, restless, and discontent. I was not happy with a number of people, including the guy who accused me of grand theft yogurt, the other people cooking in the kitchen and getting in my way (the nerve of them), the two gals Allison invited to join us for dinner who told her they already ate and then came in with groceries to join another group (frankly the mood I was in I didn't care where they ate, but I felt like I was back in high school being dissed,) I could go on but this is already sufficiently humiliating. 

Anyway, we ate. A lovely young woman from Barcelona joined us and we had a lively Spanish conversation amongst the three of us. Then I decided to take my poor pitiful self to bed. The next thing I know, I'm being awoken by the rustling of a back pack. It's totally dark in the room. I'm thinking why do these people want to get up at the crack of dawn. It hasn't been so hot you need to get started early to avoid the heat. I haven't bee to albergue yet that filled up before five, and most of them hadn't filled up at all. So I look at my phone clock. YIKES!!! It's 7:30am. Then I realize I hadn't gotten up to pee once. It struck me right between the eyes, I was tired. Duh! Well I'm a little slow sometimes, well, alright, a lot of the time, if you insist on rigorous honesty, then, yeah, most of the time. 

I got up got ready, realized how kind and considerate everyone was being quiet this morning. The room was empty when I got up. The people who were on my bad people list last night were just charming and we shared all our food at breakfast. So now I know, being tired makes me cranky. 

I was one of the last to leave the albergue. Allison and I exchanged contact info. We may not see each other again. She is going to León, but is probably staying in an albergue, because it will be her last chance to do so. I'm telling you, you get to love the atmosphere of the albergues. Tomorrow she is taking a bus to Astoga to go to the Chocolate Museum and then get a bus to San Sebastion to visit her daughter, meet her husband, and attend her first grand child's first birthday. And I am going to León, staying in the Parador, and returning to Bercianos to be a hospitalera for two weeks. She is fun to be around and we are good together, same age, same outlook, similar experiences, etc. she is from South Africa and has traveled a lot. 

So I got on the Camino late, got briefly lost, so I really started moving toward León about 9am. I think that is a record. But I have a hotel reservation, so I don't have to worry about getting a bed, not that the beds are all being taken any way. And I like heat, so I never really worry about that and right now it's getting warm, but not hot. So I was pretty much at the end of the line and didn't see any other pilgrims. Everyone, and I mean everyone was ahead of me. I did see a few bikers. I had a brief conversation with one biker when I stopped to take a stone from my shoe. He was waiting for his friends to catch up. He said I spoke Spanish well. Imagine that. It was a short conversation. I had fun singing to tunes on my iPod. I'm a little more inhibited when there are pilgrims ahead of me and behind me. 

I came across the place where I had a delicious cheese omelette last year, so O decided to stop and try it again. It was very good. There was a lot of wonderful things to look at today. The last part into Leon was a little tedious. City walking is never real exciting. When you've been out on country roads and in villages, it is a bit disorienting and very tiring to suddenly be amongst people rushing here and there, cars going here and there, horns honking, lights flashing, and all the while your tiring to look for the yellow arrows painted on walls, curbs, sidewalk, etc. or metal scallop shells implanted in the sidewalk. León also has some glass triangle (which was a design failure. I haven't seen one where the glass isn't shattered) and it has metal foot prints embedded in the sidewalk. I have to say León is probably one of the best marked cities on the Camino. 

So I get to León. The Parador, where I'm going to stay is on the Camino as it leaves León, which is to say on the other side of the city. I'm crossing the last street to get to it, I step into a cross walk and this guy has to stop for me, as I'm passing I think I hear him saying something to a guy on the side walk. I figure it's someone he knows, then suddenly the guy on the side walk is trying to get my attention and is pointing at the guy who is still stopped at the cross walk. I turn around and I'm astonished. It's my hitch hiking friend, the guy who picked me up when I wandered 10km off the Camino and gave me a ride back to Fromista!! What are the chances of us being at the same place at the same time on a cross walk? I mean the hitch hiking incident was one week and more than a hundred kilometers ago. Any way he asked how I was and I said very good, considering I was not lost right then. We waved and then went our separate ways. I'm still a little baffled by the universe. 

When I was taking the picture to show all of you the hardships I'm enduring, I saw my Irish friend, Dermott in front of the Parador. So I got to the Parador and checked I.  I got to my room and it is nice, but not spectacular. It has a nice view a a courtyard with bushes sculpted in designs and lots of fun bath stuff. The bears were especially excited about the bath stuff and decided they would let me stay with them, even though there are only two twin beds, so they have to share. Actually in Burgos when we had two twin beds we all ended up in the same bed. Hehehe. They missed me.  

Then I realized they had given me a smoking room. My booking.com profile always requests a non smoking room. I think the ash trays in the room were the first clue. The smell and the fact that's chest was getting tight was my second clue. I don't think they've heard of vapor here. So I go down to the desk to explain and she tells me the guy will be up to help Meier my luggage to a different room in five to ten minutes. I'm thinking, "luggage? She must mean my back pack, the one I've been carrying for about 350 miles. I'm thinking I can probably get it to a different room, but oh we'll. so they move down to the next floor, which must be the non smoking floor. But it's on the other Sid of the hall with a view of the street. Oh well, at least I can breathe.  

I went back to the center of the tourist area, looked at the outside of the Catedral because I planning to go inside tomorrow and use my new technique on the stained glass. I see Allison. She is on her way to see a doctor because her foot is swollen and one of the pilgrims who is a nurse said it might be infected.  

I am now at the Parador getting sleepy. So good night all.