We got to wondering. 1200 years ago a pilgrim is making his way to Santiago de Compostela on his pilgrimage to assure his place in heaven. As he is walking along through the open fields of northern Spain an ox cart comes rolling up behind him. The driver asks if he would like to ride in the cart for a bit and rest his weary legs. If the man accepts the ride, is his place in heaven forfeit? Does a pilgrimage mean one must walk the whole way, or is catching a ride for some of the distance okay?
Although we are not faced with questions of entrance to heaven, we found a diesel powered ox cart this morning and rode it for 14 miles of our pilgrimage, from Leòn to San Martin de Camino. This ride saved us walking down busy city streets, through suburbs and along business lined highways. It was just enough to get us out of the big city.
We found the ox cart was big enough to accommodate quite a few pilgrims. As we gathered at the ox cart station we met over 6 other pilgrims riding on the same “ox cart”, getting off at various locations, most of them further along the road than where we were departing.
It is interesting that someone made up a “rule” for the Camino de Santiago. If you start your pilgrimage 100 kilometers from Santiago, walk the distance and get 2 stamps from each town as you approach, then you are worthy of a certificate saying you completed the Camino de Santiago. This ruling makes the walking we are doing superfluous if our goal is entrance to heaven. However, if we just like walking, meeting people and seeing the Spanish countryside, we are meeting our own requirements and do so with enjoyment and satisfaction.
The bus dropped us off on the highway in San Martin de Camino about 9:30am and roared away down the road. This is about 3 and a half hours later than we usually get started. The sun is up, yet thankfully, the air is cool. It was 39º when we left our room this morning and has now risen to 48º, perfect for walking.
We had a bit of a scare this morning. Yesterday as we planned our ox cart diversion we were checking bus schedules and found a 9:00am bus that would take us to San Martin de Camino. This morning when I checked that same schedule, that bus did not show up. The first bus to San Martin was at 8:20pm. What?!? We considered how this would affect our plans and how we could adapt. Maybe take a taxi? Take the later bus? We decided to walk to the bus station as we had planned, to arrive there at about 7:30am and see if we could get on our 9:00am bus. We thought perhaps the website did not let you buy bus tickets without a 12 hour notice, or maybe the bus had been sold out and there were not seats available. First hand inspection of the situation seemed in order.
The city was cold, quiet and dark as we walked across town on this chilly morning. We arrived and found no one was manning the ticket booths yet. We went to one of the ticket dispensing machines, entered our desired leave time and destination and “poof!” we acquired two tickets. Now we just had 80 minutes to kill before our ride. While sitting and sipping a Coke, we met Mike from Ireland and Tom from Ukraine, two older gentlemen riding the bus due to leg injuries. We saw Ed and John again, riding the bus due to injuries and a need to move the journey ahead as they were running out of time. In all, we saw 10 people we had met riding our same bus. Good company.
From San Martin de Camino the way followed the highway for the first 4 miles. The road was busy this Saturday morning and we found the experience unpleasant. The path was adjacent to the highway and safe enough, but the noise was annoying.
Thankfully, the high temperature forecast was only 73º, and that temperature was not to be realized until 4 or 5 in the afternoon, otherwise our afternoon hike on gravel roads devoid of shade would have been unbearable.
I do have to say, we have had 10 marvelous days of fall hiking conditions and a forecast of 10 more coming up. Cool mornings, bright sunshine all day long, and for the most part comfortable walking all morning. Earlier on our trip the afternoons were unbearable hot, but now they are too warm for walking but enjoyable non the less.
Sally has created a mantra to guide her walking day, “Never pass up a red chair!”. We have noticed that nearly all outside seating at cafes and bars we pass have red chairs. When we see them, we are compelled to stop and have something to drink. It has proven to be a good way to travel. The towns come about every 3-6 miles, about perfect intervals to take a quick break. I still carry water, but I am beginning to wonder why. We consume nearly all our liquids for the day at these “red chair” stops. The thousands of Camino walkers keep these small towns alive. Without them, there is no income.
Our path took us through four towns today before we arrived at our destination, Astorga, a beautiful town accessed by a tough, steep climb of a few hundred feet off the plain below. At the top of the hill is a 146 bed albergue run by the city. These are called “municipal albergues”. The cities, years, decades or centuries ago realized that if they subsidized the housing of pilgrims, they would stop and spend their money in town. We stepped in the door and registered, as we have many nights before, for a bed each. The cost? 5€ each. It is so ludicrously cheap. This includes toilet facilities, showers, a kitchen to cook in and in this case a wonderful deck overlooking the plains. All are spotlessly clean. We love staying at the albergues because every night is like a family reunion. We meet all the people from the nights and days before, talk about the walk, share ideas and information and sometimes go out to dinner together. It makes the traveling fun.
As soon as we had our beds I slipped into my Teva’s (you take off your traveling shoes upon entering and put them in a designated spot to keep from tracking dirt all over the albergue) and walked to the supermarket to get lunch for tomorrow, this being a Saturday and not sure how late it would stay open. We didn’t arrive until about 5:30, so we were quite late. I found this small city enchanting. To get to the supermercado, I traversed three plazas linked together with wonderful shops and architecture.
Groceries secured, we moved to the deck for soda and potato chip appetizer, then prepared to go out to dinner. We found Sandy and Regina, Karen and Tanya and realized this town had a famous Gaudi designed building (the Episcopal Palace) next to the town cathedral. We postponed going out to dinner to walk briskly across town to visit this famous building, but arrived about 15 minutes too late to gain admittance. We did, however, tour the cathedral and found it amazing. Many of the chapels have ornate alters 30 feet high or more, totally plated in gold. After seeing this fixation with gold in so many chapels we have visited and wondering how they could afford so much gold we came to realize we were looking at gold looted from the Aztecs and Incas.
Back on the street we headed to the grocery store to buy makings for a salad. As we had traversed the squares we realized it was Saturday night and some kind of celebration was happening and the cafes were full. Getting served dinner would be a time consuming affair. We purchase bagged lettuce, a preprepared salad with croutons, apples and such, tomatoes, avocado, carrot and olives and headed back to the albergue. We had a delightful dinner on the deck where we met Allison from Wisconsin. We also reconnected with Raquel who gave Sally a glass of wine.
Dinner done, we prepared our bags for slipping quietly out in the morning and crawled into bed about 9:45pm. Sally was instantly asleep. I found myself not sleepy and lay awake listening to other pilgrims slipping in from town and quietly getting to bed in the dark. About 11:00 I finally settled down and fell asleep.
We got away with hiking in the afternoon today, but just barely. The heat plays havoc with Sally. If not for the moderate high temps and cooling afternoon wind, we might have found ourselves in trouble. But, it worked well, and we are back on the Camino.
Thomas, Mike and Sally getting on the “ox cart” in León.
Driving the Camino
Wonderful small Spanish towns
Red chair event
Trail side way station with fresh fruit.
Municipal albergue in Astorga with statue outside
One of Astorga town plazas
Gold plated layers of Spain
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