22-07-2011 El Burgo Ranero – Puente Villarente

Decided that today is a day of rest. Funny is that I think to walk 25-28 km today. I hadn’t thought about this distances as being a calm day some weeks ago. My little toe is a little swollen and feels strange. Still be careful. A bit about yesterday. While walking a farmer had prunes for the pilgrims. You could take them free and if you want donate. I took a little bag. I ate some with Huib and saved some for the breakfast. They had a lot of juice and were sweet. The yellow ones were juicy and the purples ones sweet. The girl which was working at the Alberge was really friendly to me. She kept smiling. Huib asked me later on if I had this more often and when did started. I have no clue to be honest. I was being nice to her and I liked her. She was flirting but I didn’t get it at that moment, my mindset was not flirting I guess. Later on I saw it also. We had diner in the restaurant of the village. Again 9 euros and 1 euro for a coffee. I had 3 coffee before I went to sleep which was nice but I felt it was now more difficult to sleep. Fortunately my body was so tired I managed to sleep. Enjoyed sleeping well in the hostal. Shower slowly, get dressed and getting ready to walk. As I skipped a stage (walking extra km a day) I wanted to give myself a bonus. Walking went really relaxed today. Really short day. We arrived at around 13.00. First went to the shower, then do my laundry and then relax a bit. Tomorrow we will walk alone. In Leon we will say goodbye at the first church we will see. Then we will finish our own camino. It’s around 320 km to Santiago de Compostela. I made a little schedule and according it I would approx. arrive 1 august in Santiago de Compostela. Wow. The bridge at Puente Villarente is very dangerous. The trucks pass really close and you have to walk there. Feels unsafe. Carmel from Ireland told me a nice story. She was fired. She told herself if she could find a nice job she would walk the camino. She got a job, as a teacher. She went to the school for the interview and guess what. The schoolname was St. James and their logo was the shell. For her this was the sign she had to walk the camino and now she is doing it. It’s almost 20.00 and I’m in bed. Being tired and I have to get up at 05.00. When preparing my backpack it went wrong. Water all over the floor. Apparently the water valve of my watersack had leaked because it was pushed on the floor and so water could go out of the sack, I think I lost 300-400 ml water. I was afraid my waterbag was broken but it was just the leak of the valve. Today my head was really in peace and quiet, I felt total calm. I was thinking about some things during the day but I wanted to focus on walking and said to myself I would not take decisions before arriving in Santiago de Compostela and let my feelings speak then.

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