Today we went 48 miles!
Now, before you think we are super human, let me explain.
The plan for today (Sunday) was to walk 14 miles to Sahagún. Then, on Monday walk 19 miles to Reliegos. Then walk 15 miles to León on Tuesday.
As they say, sometimes the best laid plans get changed. We sat down last night and plotted out what we had remaining to get us to Santiago, and given our return flight dates, we would be cutting things pretty close. So, we decided to get to Sahagún and then take a train to León which is a sizeable city. In essence, this gives us a few extra days, allows us to rest a little in León (which is much needed), and it gets us out of the hot meseta a little quicker. (Ironically, the high temperatures this week are forecased to be about 15-20 degrees lower than last week! It looks like the heatwave has finally ended.)
So, after a later start due to the lower temperatures, we began walking this morning.
We reached the first town (Ledigos) and one of our travelling companions was not feeling well. She called a taxi to get to our destination of the day (Sahagún) and I went with her so she wasn’t alone. I only walked about 4 miles today, but that was fine as I’m having a little ankle pain, and it allowed me to explore Sahagun a little more than I would have otherwise.
It included some churches and an old monastery. (Of course, pretty much everything here is old.)
One of the original gates leading into the medieval city.
And a really good paella (Spanish rice dish) for lunch.
The highlight, however, was probably going to mass at San Lorenzo church. As I walked to the church I knew something was happening because it seemed like everyone else was headed in that direction.
As it turns out, today was First Communion Sunday.
Afterwards, since today is the feast of the Body and Blood of Christ, there was a Corpus Christi procession through the city complete with band and rose-petal-dropping kids.
It was pretty fun to experience all of that. I really like the fact that the priest got to walk under a canopy. Ha ha ha ha ha! A fellow pilgrim, Sarah, said that we could use her poncho and hiking poles to recreate this for me on the Camino 😂😂😂
In late afternoon we boarded a train and made our way to León. I’ll post more pictures from there tomorrow.
One final note. We saw on the news today that there are wildfires in some of the areas that we hiked a week or so ago. We learned that they are currently evacuating pilgrims from those areas. Please say a prayer that everyone stays safe. We are safe and nowhere in harm's way.
The following pictures were taken from an online news source. It’s a bit surreal to think that I walked across that bridge and in the forest not too long ago.
Buen Camino!
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