34km (475.2 km)
Tuesday 12th April

I should have learnt by now not to listen to prophets of doom, but when everyone around you is sitting with various devices reading off the terrible weather for the day ahead, with constant thunder and lightening it’s quite hard to stay positive with a 30+km day ahead. The day did start out ominously; pouring rain, dark foreboding skies and for the first 15km it was pretty unforgiving. We then arrived at Reliegos and poured into the first one café, with a very unfriendly patron who seemed rather put out that five wet pilgrims were dripping on her café floor (I’m quite sure that her only customers today would be similarly soaked pilgrims). After potato and egg baguettes, apple cake and hot chocolate (why don’t pilgrims lose weight, I wonder….) we left revived. The day improved, the sun came out and mountains appeared on the horizon, giving welcome relief from the flat planes of the last few days. The path mainly followed the road for the remaining 17km but the rain stayed at bay and it passed relatively quickly. We stopped at Archueja, it was another 7.5km to the much more enticing Léon but my feet can’t manage 40+km. We stayed at the only Albergue in the village, a sad establishment with equally unimpressed patrons. Dinner was dreadful (only enough pasta for 3 of us?) but the company of a Taiwanese boy, two Koreans and two Austrians made for an interesting evening. One of the Korean’s mother had done the Camino five times and the Austrians have been walking the Camino in two week blocks starting in their home town in South Tyrol over a number of years.

Today I came to the conclusion that not all kilometres are equal; yesterday we were dead on our feet after 26km and today we skipped into the Albergue after 34….I also learnt about the significance of the Camino shell. All the main Caminos go to, or come from, Santiago and if you look at the routes on a map it looks like a pecten, who knew (obviously not me).

Puente Villarente