22.1 km
October 30
Time Change
Now I was very aware that there was a time change and thought I had it straight but bells rang in the albergue at 6 am, so I got up. I hadn’t slept hardly a wink as the woman above me tossed and turned all night groaning. She was a tall, big boned girl, who as soon as the alarm went off, cautiously got down from the top directly over me. I tried to move the chair under her foot to help her as it was dark and she couldn’t see it. She said.. “no, just leave it” as she just felt for it with her foot. “I am getting the f*** out of here.” she mumbled, along with a few other things. She stuffed her pack and off she went. I thought she must be an American pilgrim.(stereotyping!)
It soon became apparent that no one else was getting up. I had missed my opportunity to sleep in an extra hour. Seemed the nuns hadn’t adjusted the time on their alarm. I decided to wait for the woman to come and open up the breakfast room. I had a quick toast and coffee and headed out alone just after 7 am, to find my way through the city and continue walking the Camino. It was + 3 degrees this morning; a chilly start.
It seemed to take forever to get out of Leon and it’s suburbs. Once out of town, I was happy to be in the open space again. Three male pilgrims passed me but that is all I saw until I caught up to a woman on the trail. Pam (58) was from Montreal, a fellow Canadian, who was an English Canadian but could speak French and Italian. I soon learned that like me, Pam was a widow. Her husband had passed away 3 ½ months earlier from a 2 ½ year battle with cancer. I admired her strength for doing the Camino so soon after his death. It was something she had planned to do for quite some time and now she was called to go. She had started in SJPP three days after me and had had no rest days. We had a great deal in common including the previous weeks’ experiences on the Camino.
It turned out to be a very nice day for walking 23 km. We arrived by 1:00 (due to the time change and early start) in the small village of Villar de Mazarife. I had heard of an albergue called Tio Pepe that was supposed to be nice so we checked in there. Five pilgrims showed up and I half expected Nick to, but he didn’t. I met Chantelle here, who was the woman from earlier in the morning who had stomped out of the albergue. Turned out she was from Quebec..a French Canadian (not an American as I had thought). When we met she recognized me and apologized for her behaviour earlier in the day, blaming her mood on her treatment by the man at the albergue, the bad beds and her painful legs. This was her second time doing the camino and she said she was soooo done with it. She said she had gotten out of it what she needed and now just wanted it to be over. She was accustomed to walking 30 to 40 km a day.
We enjoyed a nice leisurely afternoon of washing and hanging out clothes, napping, drinking beer and chatting in the courtyard of the albergue. At one point the song from Adele “ Rolling in the Deep” came on the radio. Chantelle jumped up and ran to get the owners to turn up the volume. “This is my song!” Then she proceeded to sing and dance the whole song! The owners and their kids smiled and giggled at her. I think Chantelle needed that song at that very moment to bring her spirits up. When I hear that song I will always see her dancing to it.
A nice young gentleman in an electric wheel chair came into the courtyard and started conversation with us. He appeared to have Cerebral Palsy and had some difficulty with speech but could converse in Spanish, English and French. He talked about the bull fights in Spain and how people who live in northern Spain, don’t really like it. He wanted to make it clear that they don’t agree with it. When the sun disappeared, we took our wine to drink in the sunny square across the street. Seems you can drink anywhere in Spain.
This was a nice albergue for sure. Just me, Pam and Gabriel in one room. Gabriel was going to take the bottom bunk but was a nice young man and insisted I take it. We all met, along with Christian (27) from Germany, to have a pilgrim’s menu in the bar below our rooms. The owners brought out Orujo, which is a liqueur made from the solid remains left after pressing the grapes for wine. It was yellowish in colour ( indicating it had aged) and is 100 proof. We enjoyed a couple of shots of that and it was off to bed and the best sleep so far in an albergue.
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