Child Of The Corn (Day 22)
So last night in Leon was fun and wet (this could also be my new rap name). I went out for a night of sightseeing in Leon and an excellent dinner with Mick and Jaqui. The city is amazing but the rain was intense. It came down in sheets and had everyone scrambling for cover.
The cathedral is amazing and my pictures don’t do it any justice whatsoever.
One of the few places open was an Italian restaurant. It’s rare that the restaurant you go to because it’s one of the only places open is actually good, but in this instance it was great. After dinner I bid farewell to Mick and Jacqui (they are on a different schedule now and I won’t see them again this trip) and headed out.
My salad was phenomenal. The tomatoes were possibly the best I’ve ever had. Yes I posted a picture of my food on the internet. Yes, I am now that guy.
In the morning I headed out of the city towards the countryside. As is the case each time I leave a city the walk is, to be blunt, ugly as hell. You get to hike a little through the city center which is always nice but eventually you end up out in the industrial areas. This is the drab part of the camino and you just suck it up and keep walking.
Big statue dude
Smaller statue dude
This was either the art museum or a Cabelas, not sure.
Once out of the outskirts of the city the hike became a grind. It was a total of over 20 miles today and once in the countryside it was beautiful. Much like I picture Kansas is beautiful. If you love corn. Corn and dirt. Corn and dirt and asphalt roads. Let me backtrack from my earlier beautiful statement and say it was somewhat attractive in its simplicity. If you’re from Kansas and offended please know that I’ve never been there and am just making huge blanket assumptions of what it’s like. Not sure that makes it better actually.
We walked through a crap ton of corn (he wants you too Malachai - if you understand that reference then I salute you).
A few miles were along the road.
And some of the fields were just dirt.
The thing about the last number of days in the Meseta is that while it was hot and sometimes boring the lengths of the hikes weren’t that long and they were flat. Heading back out for a truly long hike turned out to be a bit of a bitch. Around 25km my legs started to hurt and at 30km I started to lose energy.
Finally I arrived at my accommodations for the evening and it was my favorite place so far. It used to be a working mill (one of the millstones is now the front entry patio) and the owners spent two years making it a bed and breakfast. My room was awesome and the dinner was out of this world. I’m currently taking ibuprofen (they sell it in 600mg pills here, Spain doesn’t play when it comes to their NSAIDs) and stretching. Tomorrow isn’t as long but it’s still going to be better than 12 miles and my current physical state is poor. By poor I mean that I’m largely immobile and it hurts to text. But I will rise again and, you guessed it, just keep walking. Here’s a picture of a sign I took in Leon because i’m a child.
Heh
