5/13 A Short Cut to Astorga

I didn't get much sleep last night.  Our albergue held 48 beds, and in bed #33 was the champion of the world...in snoring.  I might have been okay but for waking from a dream I was having around 2 am.  In my dream, I was having some dental work done (in the albergue) by a woman dentist who had a large, very noisy drill.  I was afraid she was going to wake up all the pilgrims.  I was cold too.  The fellow in the bunk next to mine had opened the windows and the temps were close to the 30s...guessing around 5C.  All I have is that silk liner and my down coat.  So I was ready to leave at 6 just to get warm!  

The roses here are amazing.  I keep stopping to smell a full bloom and though they are not as fragrant as my roses at home, they are impeccably grown.  No aphids, no black spot, no disease of any kind.  So beautiful.

We had 29 kilometers to walk to get to Astorga.  I walked through San Martin which was very cute and then lost the route before Hospital de Órbigo.  I was daydreaming and all of a sudden, I realized I hadn't seen any yellow arrows in a while and there were no shoe prints in the dust.  I use an app called Buen Camino that has been very good for telling me if I am on the route, but when I was on that farm road, all the app wanted to do was pixelate.  I turned around to retrace my steps...figured I would have to backtrack maybe a quarter of a mile, but a farmer drove up in an old, battered Opel and in decent English told me I could take a short cut.  He pointed...I walked, but the field had been plowed once...you know, big rolls of dirt and sod.  It took me a while to take the "short cut".  I liked the route today but we did have a lot of rocky road.  Hard on the feet...hard on the ankles.

At one point, I saw a small donkey on an empty lot.  Cute little gal, and I talked to her as I fished the phone out of my pocket to take a picture.  She didn't think too much of the idea...she turned her "ass" to me and took a pee.

When I got to Astorga, Polly had already checked in.  We are in a room with several South Koreans and Annalisa who is from South Africa and we see every couple of days as she hopscotches the stages with us.

Last night we talked to 2 Canadian women who are a little frustrated trying to book a room ahead.  We shared what has worked for us and it seemed like they were going to stop about 4 kilometers before Astorga in a small town called San Justo de la Vega.  But when Polly and I came back from having a glass of wine, there they both were, in our albergue...intrepid women!

The Gaudi church was inpressive...called the Episcopal Palace, it was built between 1889 and 1913 by famed Catalan architect Antoni Gaudi.