May 11, 2016 Wednesday

Walking through Mud to Astorga    Walking Day #20

After the rain in Spain comes the mud in Spain. A natural occurrence, after rain comes mud. I left from the Molino Galachos B&B at the same time as Nancy and Beth from Prince Edward Island, Canada. We all walked together for the first six kilometers until we got to a split point.

The path went along a high-speed railroad. Last night, we could hear the trains rushing by fairly often. When I did have a chance to see them, they were freight trains.

An interesting long-approach stone bridge as we entered a small town named Hospital de Orbigo, just before the path split point.

Beth and Nancy from Prince Edward Island, Canada. Being very used to cold weather, they thought the weather quite nice, while I thought it quite cold.

Here I am on the same bridge, a little more bundled up than Beth and Nancy. After crossing the bridge and walking through the village, we came to a path split point. One way went along highway N-120, a very busy highway, and the other went through the forest along a more natural path until the two paths met about 7 kilometers further at Cruceiro de Santo Toribio. Then there was one path to Astorga. Beth, being a faster walker, and having some foot problems, decided to take the highway route, as it was about 1.5 – 2 kilometers shorter, flatter, and a more consistent base. Nancy and I took the more natural route following this clearly marked arrow:

In this picture, you can see puddles on the dirt/clay path, and we are heading to the gap in the small forest up ahead.

Soon after heading through that forest, the path started gradually uphill in this very green semi-forest. The picture does not show it well, but the path is muddy and there are many puddles to traverse on one side or the other (we typically chose the side with the less deep mud).

Looking back over the valley from which we came. This is a very beautiful part of Spain, especially this time of year.

At the bottom of the picture, the mud is a little more evident.

Very soon after, for a long stretch, probably 5 kilometers, we are walking on what appears to be a road under construction. And because all that has been done is the initial uprooting of the soil, and some basic leveling, this is a long stretch of nothing but mud. This is rolling gradual uphill and downhill. At times, when we got to the bottom of a rolling downhill, there were very deep puddles, and to get around them we had to go a bit of a way off the path. Sometimes, in these little valleys, when we put our foot down, we sank 4 inches in mud. That may not sound like much, but our boots were dirty, our pants were dirty, everything was dirty. Our hiking poles were very useful in helping us not slip and helping us jump over particularly bad sections. I’m glad I have the hiking poles; it is just that little extra that helps things work well.

We are now t the point where the two paths rejoin. This is Cruceiro de Santo Toribio. a stone cross commemorating a 5th century Bishop Toribio of Astorga who fell to his knees here in a final farewell after having been banished from the town. There must be more of an interesting story about this, but I do not have time to find it right now. This is a wonderful view of the city of Astorgo. It seems so close, but we have at least 5 kilometers of walking to get there. In the distance, but not visible in the picture is snow on the mountains in the distance both ahead in this picture and also to the right, which is north.

This is the first, and smaller of the two cathedrals in Astorga we passed by on our way into the town center where our hotel is located. If the weather is good tomorrow, we will pass the larger cathedral in the morning as we leave town and I will make some photographs. (It is expected to rain tomorrow.)

Our hotel right on the central city plaza, Hotel Astra Plaza.

I had a nice dinner with Nancy and Beth from Canada, their friends Kelly from Manitoba, Canada, Donna and John from Colorado, and Connie, also from the states. All of the group except me have been on and off-again walking friends since they all started on the same day, two days before me.

I was able to clean up everything, boots, pants, gaiters, etc. and with good heat in the room, everything was dry by bedtime (which is also packing time).

Next: The rain in Spain, again…walking in the rain to Rabanal del Camino