Saturday May 25 Calzadilla de Los Hermanos to Leon

I have two songs for today:

"Rocky Ground"  by Springsteen 

We've been traveling over rocky ground, rocky ground 

"Carry that Weight" by the Beatles

Boy, you're gonna carry that weightCarry that weight a long time

We had a walk of approximately 17 miles today.  We woke up early this morning, but since the restaurant didn't open until 8, we waited a while to leave.  We really enjoyed the "Casa Rural" hotel we stayed in and include a picture of the hotel, as well as Linda with the proprietor, Lionel. Lionel is a very funny Cuban who hiked the Camino several years ago and ended up marrying a Spaniard.  He and his wife run the hotel together.

Last night we enjoyed an outstanding meal at the hotel with a French guy, a lady from Holland and a Canadian guy.  I'm always interested in how people get the time off to take this hike, so I asked the French guy how he was able to get 6 weeks off.  He politely explained to me that he gets 11 weeks vacation, which includes the standard 6 weeks mandated vacation, plus extra vacation for the hours he works in excess of the standard 35 hour work week.  Fair enough, that's the policy in France (although an expensive policy to be sure).  And who do you think chose that moment to rip into the harshness of the USA approach toward workers?  The Canadian guy!   

Jeez, I was just trying to have a nice dinner.  As opposed to my normal approach, I just shut up and continued to eat my meal.  Who the hell needs a debate with a Canadian on a Friday night?!

Meanwhile, back to our 18 mile hike today.  We had been warned about this portion of the hike by our friends Dewey and MJ who hiked the Camino in 2012.  They said this was their worst day of hiking due to the roughness of the trail.  Also, you don't come to a town for the first 14 miles or so.  As a result, we really had to stock up today on food and water (and hence, the heavy backpack and the Beatles song!).  

After a few miles of walking on a paved road, we continued onto the path, which is the original Roman road from 2000 years ago.  Funny enough I picked up a stone and it had graffiti on it that said  "Caesar was here"!  In any case, the path was very rough and uneven, with lots of rocks.  It sort of reminded me of a root canal- occasionally painful, but always irritating.  Linda said I sounded like the Clint Eastwood character from the movie Grand Torino:  "Grrh..."

After a while, we came upon the two Australian women Jeanette and Sherry, who we had walked with a couple of days ago.  We continued on with them until we reached the town of Reliegos, which was 14 miles from where we started. Here we stopped at one of the most unique places we have seen, a bar called Bar La Torre.  The proprietor considers himself a sort of Elvis guy, huge fan.  A Christmas album by Elvis was blasting from the sound system!  So, of course we stopped for drinks and to get a little bite to eat.  We were soon joined by several hikers we had seen over the past week.  It was a sunny, beautiful day today and it was very pleasant sitting in the sun.

We then continued onto the next town, Mansilla, about a 3 mile walk.  After a brief stop, we decided to take a bus into Leon, which is about 10 miles further.  While we were waiting at the bus station, we met Lesley, a 67 year old British lady who is hiking the Camino by herself.  I have included a nice picture of Lesley with Linda.  In the background, you can see a bunch of Spanish men playing cards.

After a rather short bus ride with several other hikers, we set out to find the hotel that I had made a reservation for tonight.  We searched and searched and searched, and walked several miles.  While wandering around a side street, we ran into Katherine, the American woman who lives in Switzerland, and has hiked the Camino by herself.  Her sister from Ohio flew over to meet her and hike the rest of the trail with her.  We are having dinner with Katherine and her sister and another woman this evening.  

Finally, we reached our hotel, a very nice place with a good bed!  It will be good to have a nice shower because I smell like hell....

We are taking tomorrow off and will be moving into the Parador.  We wanted to stay there tonight, but they were sold out.  By the way, for those of you who saw the movie "The Way", you might recall a huge palace like place where Martin Sheen treated the other hikers to a night in a nice place.  This is the Parador, where we will stay.