So no one else turned up in our room so it was just the 4 of us with 8 beds in the room. My feet were pretty sore after the walk yesterday. So I rested as much as I could before we headed down for dinner. The host was pretty hardcase she spoke French, Spanish and a little English there was a mix of people at dinner. There was a young German guy who was pretty confident that Germany was best at lots of things, it started with beer and then the conversation expanded to bread, and a few other things.
For dinner we had the choice of vegetable soup, mixed salad, or spaghetti for the first course. I chose the spaghetti and I was very happy with that selection. But the mixed salad did look pretty good as well. The vegetable soup not so much. For mains it was either pork fillets or chicken, I chose the chicken and it came with chips and was actually very good. For dessert was yoghurt, ice cream or crème caramel. I went for the ice cream which was one of those Viennetta Ice cream desserts. During our dinner our host told us about a group of Canadians who arrived at 7:30 the night before after completing 50+ kms and they left the next morning at 5:30am to complete another 45km. She said this is not Camino! We also had an American say they were looking at catching a bus into Leon the next day as it was too boring to walk through the outer suburbs, this is not Camino either.
The other lads headed just down the road after dinner for a drink and I went to get ready for bed as my feet were pretty sore. I hadn’t taken any more pain meds in the evening as I just wanted to see how they were. I had a pretty terrible sleep I was awake for at least a couple of hours. We decided to get up half an hour later as we only had 11kms to walk into Leon. So we headed off at about 7:00am and we were in Leon by about 9:45. We managed to arrange to drop our bags at a shop next door to the apartment, so that we could wander around the city without carrying them. We headed to the first place to get a coffee which was good but the food didn’t look worthy of a breakfast so Ray found us another venue that was 5mins walk away. It was amazing I had Eggs Benedict with Avocado and a flat white. What a good start to our time in Leon. I had decided I was going to try and see a podiatrist while I was here to check out my blisters. I tried 3 places and the first two said no. Then finally the lady with broken English and me using the translate app. As she said I could have and appointment at 1:30pm. So I joined the others at the Cathedral to look around it was amazing different to Burgos after having the audio tour, Rory and I stayed for a Mass that was happening. It wasn’t a pilgrims mass but it was lovely to hear the organ played and a very good singer sing also. After that we found Bryce and Ray and they decided to go and have a look at another building and I headed off to the podiatrist.
His name was Carlos and he spoke great English which was a relief he confirmed what I thought that the two original blisters that were healing were now infected. He cleaned everything up and cut holes in them to clean and drain some fluid and then he gave me an antibiotic ointment and some gauze and K-Tape to dress them with over the next few days. He said they should heal but if they get worse I will need to have oral antibiotics as well. He was so friendly and helpful. He said ideally just over 20kms per day but we have another 32km day tomorrow followed by a 28km day. I now have to weigh up do I push through which he said I could do. Or do I say goodbye to the guys and slow my journey. I am going to need to pray and think about that one. Appreciate your prayers if you are the praying type. He told me no shower today and stay safe off my feet as much as possible. So I have arrived 4 flights of stairs up and I am just chilling the other lads haven’t arrived yet. Anyway that is it for me for today. Made the decision to send my bag ahead tomorrow the lads are going to drop it an Albergue for me tonight.
Nga mihi
Mike
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