Via MURIAS DE RACHIVALOO – SANTA CATALINA DE SOMOZA – EL GANSO – RABANAL DEL CAMINO
27.5km
Today was spent walking with an Austrian man named Johan.
Johan is in his mid fifties, and the over the next few days he featured heavily in my journey, and in a strange, and scary way, helped me to learn some powerful lessons.
When I first saw Johan, I thought he was walking the wrong way, so I called out to him, trying to be helpful. It turned out that there were two paths leading out of Astorga, but he was so grateful to me for trying to assist him, he decided that he was going to be my new best friend. At first I tried my absolute hardest to shake him, because I had really been enjoying my time alone so much – however every time I stopped, so did he and eventually I gave up and decided that it was ‘meant to be’ that I had some company for the day! In the end I was actually glad for his company – he spoke about many interesting things like family trees and lineage, Scotland and GASP! Religion! It was a nice walk and we had a coffee stop in Santa Catalina, and then we had lunch in El Ganso in an eccentric bar called The Cowboy Bar, which was very cool – hats and old kettles hanging off the roof of what looked like an old shed.
We ordered a beer with our bocadillas, and I needed two hands to lift up my glass it was so big! I inadvertently paid for the both of us (damn no Spanish!), so as a result, Johan insisted on buying me dinner, which meant I was stuck with him…
I was going to walk 21.5km to Rabanal today, but when I got there I decided that I had enough energy to keep going the 6km to Foncebadon (which was really a way to try and lose Johan), he decide to keep walking with me (so he could buy me dinner).
We walked 626m high over the stretch of 27.5km (Astorga being 869m above sea level, and Foncebadon being 1495m about sea level). We saw all kinds of weather – warm sun in the morning, rain at midday, and heavy hail as we walked into Foncebadon.
After being there for about an hour it started to snow – a real snow storm, with everything turning to white in a matter of minutes. It was absolutely amazing.
As nice as it looks though, I was hoping it wouldn’t keep up tomorrow – I wasn’t prepared for snow and it might be an uncomfortable day! The Albergue I stayed at in Foncebadon was like a hippy commune, complete with Tibetan prayer flags, incense, handmade grain food, people walking around in hemp clothing and even a grubby baby crawling around. Johan bought me my dinner at the Albergue, which was a huge feed of meat, bread, pasta, eggs, salad and cake… I swear that every km I walk, the more I eat – no chance of going home a shadow of myself!
This is a funny shout out to Rosie Roberts who sent me a message while I was on my walk asking me how often I had to stop in the woods to wee…. After my humongous beer at lunch time I had to make an in-woods wee stop – only my second on the trip so far! Oh, but wait kids, this story gets even classier. I got my shoe. Yes, that’s right – I weed inside my shoe and sock. Such a classy lady… And I tell you, it was mighty unpleasant to be squelching around in that baby for the rest of the afternoon. And on that classy note, this is the end of day 20!
