Day twenty five El Camino

14 miles.

The segment of the route we followed today has two legitimate destinations, the one to which were sent, which is the grey route—you never want to follow the grey route if you can help it; grey=roads, and the other destination, parallel to this one, through country side, to which we were not sent. Let it never be said that we have not experienced the urban, warehouse, traffic-y sprawl of industrial Spain.

For the first two hours, or approximately 5 1/2-6 miles, we walked through the lovely centre and then the not lovely outskirts of León. Upon hitting the highway, what do we see? The Chicken Man! "Walter? Walter White, estás allí?"





A modern church, quite a surprise:




Three nuns, in full habit, hastily departing said church:





We walked in the rain, behind guard rails:





and without guard rails:





Wet, and weary of the whish and whir and roar of trucks, we stopped for our usual mid-morning pick-me-up:





Then on we intrepid souls go. I say, what is this?





Santiago is 3298 km. distant? Ayyyy, no!





We enter our destination town, Villadangos del Páramo. Some houses need a bit of work:





The occasional blue door never fails to catch the eye:





As almost always, the instructions to the night's hotel are wrong, but we find our lodgings anyway:





Yeah, it kind of is like that. And the trucks keep roaring by at a rate of about one or two every five to ten seconds.

There is not much in Villadangos del Páramo, and Hostal LIbertad, it turns out, is the hot spot in town. (It is the only spot, too.)

Men pour in to play cards:





They roll out felt mats and deal:





This guy enjoyed having his picture taken:





So much so that his pal was shining up his pate for the photo shoot:





You see those oranges? They will go straight into the machine tomorrow morning to make juice fresh as can be. (Fresh maybe, but the juice was sadly acidy and not sweet.)





Dinner was not available until 8:00 p.m., so we went to the panadaría to buy supplies for in-room dining. Bread, cheese, mustard, a tomato, a mixture of cornichons, olives, and pickled onions, followed by some sweets, tucked away in the suitcase for fortification and deliciousness, and times such as these:





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Location:León to Villandangos del Páramo