Day 21 – Vilar de Mazarife – Astorga

There was another treat for me last night, a shared room with 4 beds and only me in it. 

It was hot in the bed, so I opened the window which looked out onto the square, in front of the church. Late in the night, I could hear a coarse hissing sound, or rather, two of them. I thought about getting up to look for ages, guessing they were Barn owls. In the end I did, and was rewarded when one of them flew straight past my window!

I was up and out early as usual. The problem when you try to quietly leave a village early in the morning, is that a dog will hear you and start barking. This then sets off all of the dogs in the village, and I assume, also wakes up all of the owners and neigbours. They must think, ‘another  ****** peregrino leaving early!

Tim asked a question / comment on my blog yesterday, about the difficulty of walking down a straight path or road for a long time. Today, I experienced that exact problem. The road out of the village is 6.1km long and it is dead straight, then after a wiggle, it leads into a straight track 3.8km long. It is really hard to manage it, especially in the dark. A tractor passed me and tooted his horn in a friendly way. An hour later, he came back and I was still on the same road! I gave him a friendly wave and tooted his horn again. Little things like that help get through the difficult times.

I had to cross the main train line as the route went straight across it. I remembered doing this on the Offa's Dyke footpath in the UK. That time there were signs telling of the danger crossing the tracks and gates to stop animals from wandering onto it, not so this morning. I still had the feelings of trepidation stepping onto the tracks and looking up at the live wires.

Storks building more nests. Not the safest place to raise a family!

Once I was through the first town, Hospital de Orbigo, the landscape stared to change. There were small hills and bendy paths. This was much more enjoyable walking. I was talking to an American guy called Chris for a couple of hours. 

We stopped at a stall that I think was giving drinks and fruit away for donations. I shared my sandwich with Chris, and then we moved on to Astorga, where we were both staying for the night. Him in one albergue and me in the large Catholic hostel.

Out side my albergue, there was a huge list of covid rules that everyone abide by. This sort of warned me of what was coming. I walked in, to hopefully get a bed for the night and there was obviously a new volunteer checking in the pilgrims. Next to him was obviously the priest in charge. Conversations went on in Spanish between the two but the new recruit had to do the talking.

Q. would you sleep in the top bunk?

A. I’d really prefer not too.

Response via the recruit... No, we have no spare beds.

Me. Ok, I’ll take a top bunk.

We fill in the forms, pay the money and the priest leads me to the dorm and a short guided tour. When we get into the dorm, he points to a bottom bunk and says you can have that one!

This abuse of power took me back to my time in a convent school as a young child. The power and control was just the same there too.

I pondered whether I should leave but I concluded that I was tired and needed a rest, and I would take the bottom bunk as a gift.

Oddly enough, the priest sought me out later on when I was hanging out my washing. He started talking about money but I couldn’t understand him. I thought he was saying I hadn’t paid enough. Anyway it turned out that the church had been donated a  5 pound note and he wanted to change it for 5 euros. He could see that I was very defensive and it was partly this that made the conversation difficult.

He was nice as pie then, laughing at our mutual confusion and being friendly. I think I’ll just try and keep out of his way. I'll be gone in the morning.