September 27: Que sera sera (maybe?)

Worry is not something that you are supposed to carry on the Camino, but I have been feeling stressed about tomorrow’s stage: 32km into Astorga. Last year, it was the single worst day of our walk, even including the cold, sodden stage in the Gallician mountains where I began to experience hypothermia… Last year, it was a cycle of too hot, thunderstorm, too hot, thunderstorm, throughout the afternoon. It is a very hilly stage, not just a long one. Carey had both torn-up feet and a fever. As he said, they were agony until about 25km in, then they just hit “numb” and it was “fine” (uncoincidentally, that’s when his fever spiked). Then, they lost our bag in transit. I tracked them down using their AirTags; marched through the rain to retrieve them, while Carey lay dizzily on the floor of our room trying not to retch. It was awful.

I have no real reason to fear tomorrow: the forecast is cool and dry; our feet are in excellent shape; no sign of ‘flu. As they say, “worry is interest on a loan you don’t have yet.” We simply have to walk and hope for a more enjoyable outcome. But, I have been carrying the anxiety of it today, in most unpilgrimlike fashion. To be honest, although a welcome break, there was something about being back in a large, modern, foreign city like Leon, that reset me into a kind of “urban tension”. There were no greetings, no thoughtful conversations, no bird song. Leon is mostly traffic, retail, business and the social distancing techniques I adopt when too many people use the same space (no eye contact, no talking with strangers).

That said, we had a restful rest day in Leon. We didn’t even do robot-laundry. The museums we thought of visiting were all closed to change their various exhibitions (the Gaudi House, Cultural Heritage Centre, Spanish Art Museum). We snoozed. We snacked. There were also mindful moments: we found the park and wandered along the river. We watched a heron fishing. We saw a surprising number of river trout, flashing silver as they rooted in the riverbed.

We got a real sense of the size of Leon today. Starting near the Cathedral this morning, we walked 8km along its streets until we finally left it behind us, gratefully returning to countryside and Camino camaraderie.

We are just shy of 500km completed, 70% of the Way to Santiago. Overall, we are at around 600km, and 830,000 steps. We are amazed by the resilience we have acquired, “simply” through walking. Experience, plus residual stamina, are making a huge positive difference to our physical and mental wellbeing as we proceed. We joined Mark (Australian) and Andreas (Danish) in a beer this evening. Discovering we are repeat walkers, they were full of questions about what lies ahead. The truth is, we can only tell them what we learned from the last time. What tomorrow will bring for any of us is unknowable.