I woke in Leon intending to have an incredibly short day by enjoying
breakfast, waiting for the outdoor gear store to open, and taking a short
stroll to La Virgen del Camino right outside Leon. The Book of John (Brierley) recommended the
suburb and his description of the site of the shrine there captured my
interest.
I left the convent and wandered around the empty pre-dawn streets of
Leon for a while, taking the time to pick the café that had the best smells and
the warmest atmosphere, choosing one a short distance away from the
Cathedral. It was nice to have a leisurely
breakfast and chat with the pilgrims who filed in, and the owners kept giving us
free day-old breads and sweets, and so by the time I left to go to the gear
store, I was feeling well-fed and relaxed.
Officially the store was to open at 10… and at half past not only was
there no sign of anyone inside, but the outside stoop had gathered several
other pilgrims in need of sundries – including Leonie, Agnes, and Lucas from
the courtyard a few days before. By 11 I’d
given up and walked on, which afterwards proved a smart decision when I heard
exactly how expensive the gear was inside.
REI it was not.
Leaving Leon was a real shock – soon after leaving the old city I was
obliged to walk through increasingly industrial sections of the city that
decreased in upkeep and demeanor. At one
point, despite the late hour, I walked past an alleyway where a group of people
were huffing something out of a paper bag and I felt angry that The Book of
John (Brierley) failed to mention that this could be a significantly dangerous
walk early in the morning.
Soon though, a chipper girl came up behind me and basically just jumped
right in to conversation unbidden. She
was a recent psychology graduate from a university in Canada named Monica and
she quite literally talked my ear off for the entire walk out to La Virgen del
Camino.
It was her first day on pilgrimage, and boy was she energetic… and so
young. Even the younger people I’d met
from Europe seemed to have a savvier demeanor.
This young lady was all smiles and exuberance. Maybe it’s a Canadian thing.
When I got to La Virgen, it was crowded and busy and sat right on top of
the interstate and after sitting on the sidewalk for a few minutes to readjust
my boots, I decided to keep walking. It
was already late, but I decided to count on the Way to find a place to sleep
that night, and when the road branched between two routes (one more scenic
toward Mazarife and the other more established toward a different town), I
veered toward Mazarife.
Quickly, I was back in open farmland and a path that was only
occasionally marked by yellow arrows. An
hour or so later I came across a group of pilgrims all clustered around a
fountain and picnic tables, the last resting point before a long push to
Mazarife. Vittoria was there alongside
some older pilgrims I didn’t really know, and although she and I tried to
communicate, her English wasn’t strong enough to catch my jokes and so I pushed
on alone.
When I walked into Mazarife in the pre-dusk, I impulsively committed to
the first albergue on the right which offered a ‘combo’ of bed, breakfast,
dinner, and laundry for 20 Euros. Done
and dusted, I handed over the cash and found a bed toward the back of the dorm,
nearly scalded myself with the hottest shower I had the entire time I was in
Spain, and spent the rest of the afternoon outside on the relaxing garden
chairs listening to a married pair of pilgrims sing and play guitar. The sun set in front of us through light
cloud-cover, and despite the occasional drizzle and persistent flies
investigating my coffee, I couldn’t shake a peaceful, happy mood.
The pilgrim’s dinner in the downstairs dining room was one of the best I’d
had, prepared by a chain-smoking chef who looked like an extra from Sons of Anarchy, and when he served the
dessert our table applauded. He looked
genuinely shy, and I wish I’d tried to talk to him with my bad Spanish. Throughout dinner I sat next to a blonde
woman from Bratislava named Sylvia who had left the IT industry to come on
pilgrimage, and I hoped we’d end up walking together in the future since she
was an excellent storyteller and quick to smile and laugh. It wasn’t to happen, but I didn’t know that
at the time.
After dinner Agnes, Lucas, and Leonie invited me outside to drink red
wine mixed with orange soda – their approximation of another drink I’d never
had. It was surprisingly good, but let’s
be honest. My palette isn’t exactly
sophisticated. It was dark, and smoky,
and loud with laughter and sarcasm… in short, a welcome diversion from some of
my more serious moments on the Camino. Lucas
was sly and funny, Agnes bright with ideas and observations, and Leonie vibrant
and large in her presence. True story,
there was an extended argument between them about the proper types of sausage –
you could probably evaluate the national character of Poland, Austria, and the
Czech Republic based on their specificity and seriousness. By the time the time we snuck in right at
curfew, I was more than tipsy and happily exhausted with laughter.
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