tres dias de calor, y estamos en Leon

After Fromiste, we walked to the Knights Templars Albergue. I didn´t post that night because i was too tired and grumpy.

That day there were two choices in the Camino trail, one beside the highway and one through a forest. We decided to take the forest trail. However, after a long stretch with no yellow arrows we started worrying about being lost and so we backtracked to the start and took the highway trail. It was a hot day (high 80s) and I got very tired. The Templars albergue was really pleasant. There were lots of kids there and older people. They had a nice front porch to relax on. But I never quite recovered from the hard day.

The next day we hiked to Berciano. We were supposed to go to "Burgo Ranero" (does that mean "City of Frogger?") but didn´t quite make it.

Berciano was a dusty village, with buildings seemingly made of mud and straw (adobe). I don´t know if they honestly make buildings out of mud and straw in 2008, or if it´s a mud and straw sort of exterior siding!

Very odd. There were square openings in the mud buildings, some filled with boards, some with bricks.

The town seemed asleep. We stayed in a hotel right over the first bar we came to. It was relatively cool inside the hotel room. Outside was over 90, maybe even hotter in the sun.

The bar was filled with about 30 creepy old men. I was embarrassed to walk in there in my shorts and running bra.

I went upstairs and took a shower and a nap. When I came down the creepy old men were all gone. The only people in the bar were a two young girls from Germany who were walking the camino.

They said that they had tried to get a drink in the other bar but it was filled with creepy old men and they felt uncomfortable there! We decided the creepy old men had migrated from one bar to the other.

Late that night we discovered that the town came to life around midnight. Everyone was in the bar or outside in the street, chatting and bickering in loud voices. We had to put in earplugs at 3:30. I closed our window but then the room got hot so we had to reopen it.

Next day we hiked to Mansilla de los Mulas. Mansilla means "Mano en Silla" or "Hand on the Saddle". Mulas means Mules.

I expected another dusty mud village but I was pleasantly surprised. Mansilla had a Medieval Wall surrounding the old city.

We stayed in the loveliest place, "Albergueria del Camino".

Gotta go. More in the next post.