After yesterday’s long walk from León, today’s itinerary was mercifully short. Astorga is only 15km from Hospital de Órbigo, but it’s such a friendly city and so well set up for pilgrims that it’s worth a stay – if for no other reason than to rest up for the next couple of days of hiking as the Camino climbs into the Montes de León.
I set out later than usual this morning, since Google and the guidebook were suggesting only 3-3.5 hours’ walk to Astorga. To kill the time, however, I took a detour in search of an ancient oak tree said to grow deep in the old forest north of Valdeiglesias.
Joined on my random quest by Anna-Marie, a Danish ceramist from Aarhus, it took half an hour to track down the location (with a little help from Google Maps). A local out walking his dog was justifiably baffled by my madcap mission but it was a good excuse to have a chat in my favourite language.
We found the spot where the tree was supposed to be, but whether we found the tree or not is anybody’s guess. The trailing lichen from every branch certainly made the forest look considerably older than the others I’ve passed thus far, but that probably has more to do with the health of the forest and its relative altitude above the last kilometre of the meseta.
The jury’s out on the tree. Still, it was an adventure!
Anna-Marie took a break and I pressed on, making a mental note that our detour left us over an hour behind the other pilgrims. Once again, I had the Camino to myself, which meant that I was much less inclined to pause at the couple of rest stops I encountered. Which meant I gave the Casa de los Dioses a miss, though it looked like more of a hippie love-in than even this crazy shaman could handle!
I must have gone like the clappers (or they must have breakfasted long), because I wasn’t all that far out of San Justo de La Vega before I caught up to a familiar bunch: Tadeo, Christophe and Estrella. It was good to have company for the final stretch, so I slowed down my pace and fell into step.
We made it to Astorga on the back of Tadeo’s wonderful singing voice and Estrella’s remarkable knowledge of Spanish ballads (apparently they pop up here and there in Korean dramas – who knew?).
In lieu of a menu peregrino – which can get a bit samey – we bought supplies at a local supermarket for a communal salad. And what a salad! I haven’t even so much since starting the Camino. Good food, good company, good language practice and great exercise. There’s really very little to fault the Camino.
Unless you don’t like Italian. Because there’s a lot of Italians on the Camino! They must be the biggest demographic out there by a country mile… BB x
The Book of Barnabas 