A long and tedious walk out of Leon, through a busy and bustling city even in the early hours of the morning. One of the less favourable stretched along a main road to San Martin which really is a one-horse town right on the main road but good enough for a weary body to rest and catch up on some much-needed sleep. From a tiny town to the energetic and vibey Astorga filled with beautiful buildings and lots of people, I found myself craving the peacefulness of the quiet little meseta towns.
The following morning, I started my climb back into the mountains to a tiny village left in ruins called Foncebadon. The only buildings renovated in this tiny place high up where the air is clear and fresh air the Albergue’s for the pilgrims. There is a medieval restaurant where goats with jangling bells and hens with their chicks walk through as if they own it. A very surreal feeling being in such a deserted and abandoned town. I left the next morning eager for the day and found myself walking along a dusty path with the moon still high in the sky guiding me along the way. Catching my breath on a very steep hill I turned around and found the most amazing sunrise reaching her arms over the mountains I had left behind. A breath-taking moment where I was suspended between the moon and the sun in a world of my own with not a soul in site just mountain and valleys as far as the eye could see. I left my stone that my daughter had given me at La Cruz de Ferro as a token of love amongst the thousands of others left before me. The rest of the 25km downhill I do not have much of a recollection of except for the breath-taking views and almost unreal feeling of oneness with everything around me and above me. I glided down on the wings of angels, the same ones that have protected me from the day I started this journey.
I now have less than 200km left to get to Santiago, where as the saying goes all my sins will be absolved, and so I find myself wondering how this is all going to end ?