34 km ~ 46,000 steps
Song of the Day: Boulevard of Broken Dreams – Green Day
So we all know I’ve been nauseous for the past 3 days now. But this morning, I woke up feeling so gross, I knew I couldn’t start right away so we didn’t set out until 7:30. We were supposed to meet up with our friend from yesterday, but let’s be honest, that was not happening. I tried to make it work though so I wanted to push through that beginning stretch and meet up with her. Only, that first 10 km were a loooong 10. Those of you who walk know what I mean. And it was pretty boring for most of that. Though the sunflowers were pretty eventually. And Maverick did get scared by a huge herd of cows so at least that was amusing.
Entering into Hospital de Órbigo I was dragging. I felt like I was going to be sick. I was exhausted even though I hadn’t even walked a full day. I wanted to be done. The bridge into Hospital was still stunning, though. Called “El Paso Honroso” or The Honorable Pass, it was here a knight long ago was turned down by a woman and decided he would lock himself in an iron collar and would not take it off until he had defeated 300 knights in jousting at this spot. I guess this was supposed to make her fall in love with him? Seems a bit nutso to me, but hey, to each their own. He did it by the way. Beat 300 knights and took the collar off, then made pilgrimage to Santiago.
Meanwhile,We sat on a rock wall in Hospital de Órbigo for what to had have been almost two hours because I was simply too tired to keep moving. I felt nauseous and wanted to stop and have a rest. An albergue here was all happy to let us stay, only Maverick would need to sleep in the garden. I never did that. Though the albergue looked so nice. It would be a dream to take a nap right about then. But of course, I wasn’t going to abandon him in a garden for a night the little baby. So we pushed on.
Pushing on was torture. Though Brierly’s guidebook had made this next section seem wonderful, it was not. It was not wonderful at all. It was hot and dusty and felt like I was going through California or something and I told my mom if I ever told her I wanted to do the PCT to remind me of this moment and how much I hate scrubby hot desert-like crap walking. So those were my feelings for the day.
Every town we stopped in would not allow dogs at an albergue. One hospitalero was concerned when I said we wouldn’t be staying there if Maverick was forced to just be in the garden. She asked what we were planning to do then. The day was already late. It was still hot. It was clear we were exhausted and needed a place to stay. But I told her we would just keep going. We didn’t really have another option. You would think she would make an exception in that situation since I’m pretty sure there was only about 2 other pilgrims staying there, but no. Alright then. On we go.
We finally made it to a place that would allow Maverick. It was about 6 km shy of Astorga but this was where we would stay for the night. Thunderstorms were imminent. I felt like curling up in a ball. And finally this place in San Justo de la Vega would allow us to stay in their albergue. They were a pension/restaurant/albergue in the back. I put my stuff on a bottom bunk and made to go take a shower to wash off the dust and awfulness of today. Only the one other pilgrim in the albergue was there to give me crap. He started basically yelling at me from his bunk about how he didn’t like Maverick and Maverick couldn’t be allowed here. I told him how the hospitalero allowed it but he would not hear of it. It was like the train conductor all over again, that rude and mean no matter how I tried to calmly explain it. Fighting back exhaustion and tears again, I picked all my stuff back up and made my way back to the hospitelaro at the bar, asking to have a single room in the pension instead. So what it cost me more money? I just want a damn bed at this point.