Day 11: Leon to Mazarife (Sort Of)

The talk around the Peregrino table last night was who’s taking a taxi to the edge of Leon and who’s walking the whole way out of town. Walking through city streets is not our favorite thing to do, but Donna and I decided not to skip seeing the rest of the city.

Look what we would have missed if we took the taxi! Behind the Basilica we found this K marker. Our Camino from Burgos is 500K, so in the next day or so we should hit our half-way mark.
This was about the most interesting thing on the Camino today. We had hoped for a change of scenery once outside Leon, but other than the soil being redder than before, not so much. Please write YOUR caption in the comment section. I was at a loss for words.
After walking about 8K in town, and then 14K up and over hills, we were ready to hit the town of Mazarife. Nice mosaic welcomed us to town, and then we realized our lodging was not in this town, but that we needed to call the lodging and they would come get us.

We waited for our ride to the “cottage” lodging at Tio Pepe’s bar and albergue. Mercedes picked us up. That’s the B&B owner’s name, not the make of her car. She spoke a little English, and when she learned that I spoke a little Spanish, she gave me a good run for my money. I told her right off the bat [in Spanish] that I speak a little Spanish, and if she speaks slowly, I’ll understand more.

OMG. What a delight. We bantered back and forth about how many children we had, grandchildren and where we lived. When she found out we lived in Southern California, she launched into a story [in Spanish] about her sister’s friend’s daughter named Julia who is married to Martin Sheen’s son Emilio Esteves’s son Taylor just had a baby girl and how her sister and her friend were going to Los Angeles in two weeks to spend one month to see the baby.

I. Kid. You. Not. I understood it all!

When we arrived at Mercedes’ “casa,” we were blown away. CaminoWays.com, our booking company asked us in advance if we’d be willing to stay in “country cottages” along the way, and we said yes. So glad we did!

Antiques everywhere! My eye, of course, was drawn to these two typewriters in the dining room.
A steam—close to a river, if you ask me—ran right under the dining area!
And we explored said “river” upstream along a train that included a birdhouse. Note that this is post hiking, post shower attire that Donna is modeling. Tres chic!

Tomorrow is another 20+ kilometer day. We met four sure-to-be-fun folks from Seattle at dinner, so we are looking forward to adding to our Camino family.

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