The day got off to our typical start. We were thrown out of the albergue. It's nice to get a roof over your head, a dry bed and a warm shower for 5-10€. With that bargain comes the realization that you will be gone by 8am, or around dawn! This usually occurs under the watchful and inpatient eye of the hospitalero that is in charge of morning clean up. We were packing our bikes while mops and buckets were being shuffled around us in the international language of "why are you still here you slugs". We counteracted this invisible push out the door when my fully loaded bicycle crashed to the floor and nearly slammed into a double oversized glass door. That was a close one. We emerged into the rain and quickly ducked into a bakery. Never pass a bakery on a bicycle. Never ever pass a bakery on a bicycle when it is raining. This was our last day with the bicycles and it would be our greatest test to date. Intermittent rain, highs in the 50s and a fierce headwind most of the day. Morale sagged, and then it dipped and then it went into a Kamikaze death spiral. We trudged across the last bits of the Meseta pedaling full tilt less than 10mph. The walking peregrinos had blank stares after 6-8 days walking through nothing. We met one pilgrim named Andreus who decided not to speak through his 7 days on the Meseta. The Meseta will get inside your mind. It will chew you up and spit you out.
Eventually we did reach Leon. It is a lovely, vibrant city but it is not pretty getting into the city. The industrial outskirts are not featured on postcards, even as a joke. We saw some families gathering mushrooms and a shepherd moving his sheep/goat herd. I wondered if the sheep were eating the mushrooms as they grazed. One man showed us his haul. He opened his basket and picked out a silver dollar-sized mushroom with no visible stem. The thickness was 1-2 cm and the top was dark. The bottom was ribbed and white. Mushroom gathering here in Castilla Leon is huge. See link above.
We've found our way to the Albergue Santa Maria in the old city of Leon. It is a 132 bed old school no-nonsense place run by Benedictine nuns although our hospitelero is a man named Seamus from Ireland, now living in the Canary Islands. Not having the strength to put this all together we headed into town to return our bikes and have a look about. The bicycle shop was closed as expected but the burger shop was open next door. As instructed we headed into the burger shop and somewhat smoothly keys were pulled off a hook and a restaurant worker was helping us roll our bikes into a dark storage building between the two stores. The bikes were out of our hands and hopefully not being smuggled to Morocco which is what the return transaction seemed like. We wandered the old city and found the Cathedral. It had beautiful stained glass and was also started in the 13th century like Burgos. It is quite similar to Chartres. It is not as impressive as Burgos but is beyond my wildest imagination for what a town of 5,000 could have attempted to build back in the 1200s. After the Cathedral we revitalized with merienda at Valor. The Spanish take their chocolate VERY seriously.
We finished off the night in the bustling city center near the Cathedral winding up in a Mexican restaurant because most kitchens were not yet serving food at 8pm. We just missed the pilgrim's blessing at 9:15pm. Amy was not happy but we feel blessed just to be here.
No comments:
Post a Comment