Astorga

I woke with a start. People were moving around me. It must be after 6. I´d better get up and wake the girls. We were walking to Rabanal de Camino, 21.4 kms away up a steep mountain and I wondered whether Rosa was up to it. It had taken me ages to go to sleep. I had thought it was lucky there that were four free bunks together when we arrived until the man next to us started snoring. No coincidence. Checked the time and it was 2.39.

By 7, Luna was ready to go. A beautiful sunny morning with a snowy bite. There were more people on the road than we were used to which suits Rosa-chat-along I think she could walk hundreds of kms without realising provided that she has someone to swap information and experience with.
´The weather is going to get better and better over the next ten days´an American woman said.
´It´s still cold. I don´t have my gloves´, Rosa said.

We made it to Rabanal and it´s time to post this blog because the girl´s want to move.

Hasta manyana.


14 MAY - THE DAY OF FEVER AND REST

Look at that rain! It´s because you´re sick Rosa that we don´t have to walk in the rain today,´I say as we drive from from Leon to Astorga in an ALSA bus.

In Leon the night before, Rosa´s temperature had soared with no obvious cause. She was probably fighting off something we´d come across along the way. Luckily I´d found us a deal for 2 nights at the phenomenal San Marcos Hostel, a pilgrim hospital and headquaters of the Knights of Santiago that was renovated in the 16th century at the height of the Spanish Renaissance. Rosa could sweat out the fever in luxury while keeping an eye on the pair storks who were tending their babies in a gigantic nest outside our window.

By the morning the fever had subsided. I off-loaded some clothes and books at the local Post Office near our hotel, thinning down and getting ready for the second stage of our journey...and rather than walking we to Astorga we took the bus through the rain. As soon as I saw the intact Roman walls at the base of a rose-stone Cathedral and greyish Gaudi neo-Gothic palace I knew that we were driving into Astorga.

You should stay at the Albergue San Javier,´´´the Spanish woman in the bus-seat in front of us said in perfect English´. I had planned to go to another Albergue but thought these directions were too clear to ignore. And Marc Grossman, the Australian expert on the Camino (see his website www.caminodownunder.com) also recommends the San Javier and lunch at the Hotel Gaudi.

Marlies sat at a round table at the Albergue San Javier looking at the Credential´s of three other pilgrims. She was handing out cards for lunch at the Gaudi Hotel on the square opposite the architect´s Bishop´s Palace.
´That´s where we´re going for lunch. We´re starving´, I said.
´Give me your Credentials, leave your packs here and go now´ she said in English with a soft German accent looking at the clock. It´s twenty to three...

An Albergue is a place to stay at low cost that follow the tradition of hospitalityfor pìlgrims that is older than a millennium. Some are run by religious organisations, others by public organisations like the local municipal council and there are networks of private albergues. For the rest of our journey to Santiago we will stay mostly in Albergues.

The girls didn´t want to leave the cosy atmosphere at the San Javier in Astorga - even to visit the Museum of Chocolate. They love sitting round talking to other pilgrims about where they come from and where they are going to.
´This is the best part of the day for me,´Marlies said placing a big log in the fire.
Around 7, the masseur arrived, put his table in the middle of the triangular area around the fire and he worked on tired bodies one after the other until about ten.