Yesterday was a long, hot stage to get to Astorga, a town with Roman roots. We were too tired to write, so today I’ll combine two days.
We started out yesterday with a 28.5 km day ahead of us, but unsure how my toe would hold out. Fortunately Rich has expanded his expertise to podiatry and wrapped that little guy up in layers of gauze and tape, and it has survived.
We made 3 new Australian acquaintances (Heather, Peter and Andrew) yesterday morning and enjoyed walking with them until we had to kick into higher gear to ensure a timely arrival in Astorga.
Once in our destination we registered at the large albergue, shared a washer with 2 other pilgrims (the nice German guy wouldn’t affend my sensibilities by making me touch his briefs – how quaint), hung the laundry and sought a beer.
We ended up lunching with our Spanish friend Jose Luis who we met on day one of our Camino, and afterwards viewed a Palace designed by Gaudi and toured the Cathedral.
Today was designed to be a shorter stage but we tacked on another 5km of steep climbing into the mountains. Unbelievably we are now at a higher elevation than we were when crossing the Pyrenees. Tomorrow we will reach our highest point of the Camino and then have a very steep and long descent. (More mountains in the future though.)
Officially there are 10 more days of walking until we reach Santiago. We are leaving Castillo y León autonomy and entering Galicia, where the climate should change to cooler and wetter Atlantic weather.