Camino Francés Day 22 – Villar de be Mazarife to Murias de Rechivaldo

The Night Walk.

It had been discussed numerous times over the last week, whether to under take a night walk. It had been something I read about and thought it would be good experience. You get to see the Camino differently underneath the stars.

At 3am me and Dirk set off into the dead of night. After trying not wake the whole town with the worlds most noisiest door to the albergue, we began our night walk.

The world was silent as we left the lights of the village behind us. The route was on a long straight country road only illuminated by the the moonlight.

We passed a waymarker saying there was 300km to Santiago, however we passed more of these throughout the day with varying values that didn’t always go down!

The immediate surroundings were corn fields, and every horror film came to mind, making it a little eerie in the moonlight. We left the road on to a cobbled track passing through more corn fields before coming to a village.

We creeped through the slumbering village to follow a railway line, until we met the road leading back to the main Camino. This was at Hospital de Orbigo.

Here there is a large bridge that features in the literature about the Camino. Seeing it lit up in the night made it more impressive.

It was still too early for cafés to be open for breakfast, so we pressed on until we finally arrived at café at 8am. Sitting outside having a croissant, Arnica stopped by. The three of us walked together into Astorga.

We stopped at a donativo stall ‘Casa de los Dioses’ that also had beds and hammocks. The stamp is a good one; worth getting. A little bit further on is a tower with a ladder leading to the top. This was begging to be climbed!

We then descended into Astorga having a few laughs on the way, slaloming down the hill. We arrived in Astorga to have lunch before moving on to the next village where we planned to stay.

Disappointingly the cathedral was closed for a siesta, so I didn’t get to go in or a stamp. There are still plenty of stamps and churches to see, so not the end of the world.