Cruz de ferro to O Cebreiro

lunch

always walking west. always walking into our shadows.

Everyones boots

This is not a picture of Ebony but our Troll Doll and we stroke it´s hair for good luck!

Leon to Cruz de Ferro (Iron Cross)

The Iron Cross. Very symbolic on the Camino the idea is to leave something here from home, traditionally a stone, however people leave all sorts of things like photographs and t-shirts

Camino merchandise.

The way has been very well marked (sometimes a little too well).

Early starts

Lunchtime.

Richo´s ferral foot. Another travellers solution was to simply put a sanitary pad over his entire heel.

Some shots of the outside and inside of the Cathedral at Leon.

Burgos to Leon

This marks half way (about 400km) through the Camino... why again are we doing this???






This is the duldroms of the Camino and many of the people we meet that were short of time would catch the bus through this part. This part was extremely flat and was the most mentally challenging. Whilst going over the Pyrinese was one hell of a physical struggle there is somthing to be said about walking all day towards an endless horizon with nothing but your own thoughts to entertain yourself with. This stretch also has the longest walking days becasue it is so flat. Sometimes there would be 22 kms between towns. Our longest day was 37km which is about 9 hours of walking. we did many things to keep ourself sane, like good old "top five" which we covered every catagory imaginable.
Saying all this the weather was amazing during this section, never walked in the rain once.
We spent Good Friday watching the "Semana Santa " procession. This was a very interesting insight into the strong Catholic culture present here in Spain.

Pamplona to Burgos

From Pamploma to Burgos was our next leg. The weather cleared up as did our spirits. Not to mention we went and made a few extra purchases (a new pair of shoes for Richo, and a new pair of super pants for Ebs).

This section of the walk, we went through vineyards, over mountatin passes, through the modern windmill fields, and started to see some of the great little towns on route.

Our bodies started showing a bit of wear and tear, as you can see that is Ebs´ big toe with a piece of string through it. This method was founded in WWI apparently, and no one has come up with anything better. It did get thoroughly infected, but at least it looked cool at the time.

Richo´s feet were thoroughly deformed throughout the course of this section. So having arrived at a refuge along the way, we met a lovely Italian hospitalarian (the person who runs the refuge) who said she would see to his feet after a shower. She began in a highly professional and sterile manner of bursting each of his 6 blisters and draining "all the lickid out". She was always careful about sterilising the area and making sure no bacteria came into contact with the open blister.... until a hippy showed up. She offered us a container of herbal cream of a questionable (and certainly not medically documented to assist in the healing of blister what so ever) medicinal properties, complete with a few pubic hairs. The Italian lady then smeared a big dollop of this crap on each of his blisters, causing each of them to throb increasingly over the course of dinner. After dinner we all (Ebs, Richo and Anna another girl who had received the "treatment") reported to the local emergency ward and received a series of bewildered looks and confused questions as to whom had done what to our feet.
We have certainly witnessed some miracles on this pilgrimage, none more impressive than the fountain that dispenses both free drinking water and free red wine... thats right people, FREE RED WINE!!! However if you look closely at the faces of the two travellers standing either side of this modern day miracle, neither look the slightest bit impressed as it pissed down rain sideways all day. That day we walked 6 hours in the pouring rain, everything got wet including sleeping bags. We seriously investigated the bus to Portugal that day. But as always, the weather got better.
Click on any of these photos to have a better look.