by Steffi Luka

Boadilla del Camino – Carrión de los Condes

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The Dutchman and the Frenchman are still asleep in their tents when I set off early. It is windy and cold. A hot coffee would be wonderful right now, but the idea of ​​trying my luck again at yesterday's hostel doesn't even cross my mind. For quite a while, the path follows the Canal de Castilla, which was heavily used for transport within Castile until industrialisation in the mid-19th century. The landscape here strongly reminds me of East Frisia or even the Dortmund-Ems Canal.

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Carrión de los Condes – Terradillos de los Templarios

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And they all live happily after they have finished rummaging around. It is unbelievable - rustling here, rustling there, I don't need an alarm clock at all. Whereas I feel guilty at the slightest noise I make, but that also means I am getting practically nothing done, because everything happens in slow motion for me. The perfect solution would actually be to pack everything the night before and then carry the things I need during the night outside the next morning and finish packing there. As it is, it takes me a full half hour this morning to get ready. Once I finally get my rucksack out of the dorm room, I brush my teeth and leave the hostel through the garage, because the front door stays locked until 6:30.

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Bercianos del Real Camino – Mansilla de las Mulas

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The air in the room is thick and stuffy when I wake up in the night. I notice that the Spaniard-woman has completely shut the blind on the only window in the room by her bed, so that no air can get in at all. Yesterday it had already been stuffy all day, even though the window was open. So I open the door to the corridor to at least let the stench out.

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León – Villar de Mazarife

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I don't even notice how bad the air is in the dormitory again until I have to go to the toilet in the middle of the night and open the door to the corridor. The rush of fresh air immediately makes me gasp for air. One day I will suffocate on the Camino. Completely deprived of oxygen, I only wake up in the morning when Maria shines her headlamp directly in my face while she is packing her stuff. Still half asleep, I get up and am overwhelmed by the chaos in the bathroom, which has a grand total of only two sinks and two toilets. I just want to get out of here and eventually leave the hostel around 6:30 without being washed.

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Villar de Mazarife – Astorga

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I leave Villar de Mazarife while it is still dark. And it begins right at the edge of town - the longest and straightest stretch of road I have ever seen! At first, I can't see the end of the road because it is dark, and later I can't see it because there isn't one, at least not for the next eight kilometres. Just imagine that - an asphalt road that runs completely straight for over eight kilometres. There are certainly longer ones somewhere on this world, but walking something like that really does something to you.

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Astorga – Foncebadón

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In the morning I boil water downstairs in the kitchen because I read yesterday that hot drinks in the morning stimulate the gut flora, even if it's just hot water. While I sip this delicious liquid, I tend to my battered feet. My right heel is now one giant blister. I put a plaster over it because I'm afraid the huge thing will burst and get infected if it rubs openly against my sock. I pad all the other pressure points with the sheep's wool I still have left over from that mysterious signpost in Cirauqui.

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Foncebadón – Ponferrada

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It is not yet fully light when I quickly climb the hundred metres of elevation up the Monte Irago towards the famous Cruz de Ferro . I am freezing and wish I had dressed more warmly. It is only eleven degrees Celsius, but the wind makes it feel colder. Frogs are croaking, wisps of fog shroud the mountains, and it's a full moon. I try to capture the atmosphere in photographs, but the eerily beauty of dawn doesn't come across at all in the pictures.

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