My favourite pilgrim statue so far, outside the parador in Leon

 Arcahueja to Villar de Mazarife, 31km

So until now I haven’t regretted any of the choices I have made about when and where to stop, but last night was a bit of a blooper. I was walking with Amelie who was quite determined to push through the last 8km to Leon, but I decided to play it safe and stop at  Arcahueja.  The albergue was slightly grubby, my food was decidedly average and I was the only one there aside from a Spanish couple who made it clear they wanted to be by themselves. 

So this morning when I walked into Leon and found it to be absolutely stunning, I had even more cause to kick myself for not cracking on. Even worse when I randomly bumped into Dominic (who I was sure was a day or two behind me) and he regaled me, over chocolate and churros, with stories of the great night he had had the night before with about a dozen other people – most of whom I had met along the way.  Still, my decision, so have to live with it. 

That aside though, Leon is absolutely lovely – beautiful architecture and a lovely vibe of Spanish hustle and bustle. It also has quite a arty feel with a few nice looking galleries and some stunning public sculptures. My absolute favourite of all that I have seen so far on this trip was a sculpture of a resting pilgrim, sandals off and face upturned to the sun just in front of the amazing parador hotel.  I felt such a connection with this sculpture, I plopped myself down beside it (backpack and all) and assumed a similar position of rest/sheer exhaustion.  I probably sat there for about ten minutes without moving, only waking up to the sound of about twenty cameras taking my picture as a guided tour group went past. That’s me, immortalised on the camino. 

The interesting thing about walking through bigger cities like Leon is that you don’t only see the tourist-friendly city centres, you also get to soak up the much less glamorous suburbs. I passed through quite an industrial area and then an area that reminded me about the whole world of retail I had completely forgotten about.  The small villages I have been passing through have had nothing like lighting shops, stationery stores, kitchen showrooms and shops specialising in power tools (I had to stop and ogle that one) so it was a pretty intense reminder of how much of a bubble I have been living in the last few weeks. I even popped into a proper size supermarket for a few basic essentials and ended up walking out with about three or four things I had no need of – and absolutely no desire to carry … though to be fair, my afternoon hummus snack went down a storm!

After I had cleared the ‘burbs (about two and a half hours outside the city) I had a choice of continuing on the senda, or taking a more remote option. Absolute no brainer in my books – and pleased to report I didn’t see another car or person for the rest of the afternoon. 

Have found the red centre of Spain

 The landscape I was walking through was very barren and reminded me of central Ausralia –  the bright red dust of the road the only slash of colour against a very grey and black landscape.  But with a backdrop of silver clouds, it was actually quite pretty in a thank-God-I-am-not-on-the-senda-anymore kind of way. The only excitement came when I sat down on a concrete block on the side of the road at one point and inadvertently gave the call to arms to an enormous ant colony. Within two minutes of sitting down I found the first one on my shoulder and within three minutes I had my shirt off, whooping and yelling and hopping about like a loon as I attempted to swat about a hundred of them off my body. At this point, very glad I hadn’t seen another human being for a good three hours.

Pleased to report I am much happier with the albergue I am in tonight. I walked in to find Canadian John sipping wine at a table in the bar and have just finished a very civilised meal with him, Helga from Austria who I first met a few days ago (she has a brilliant way of telling the story about her constant attempts to explain that she is from Austria, not Australia: ‘no, no kangaroos, just Mozart’) and a few other random pilgrims. Ready for an early night tonight though – guessing it is the exhausting city action, but am absolutely shattered.