Day 20 – El Camino – Astorga to Rabanal

Astorga to Rabanal, we were four in the dorm again. An alarm again went off, again no one woke up. I softly tapped the side of the bed to wake up Sam, whose alarm was sounding.

Here are some shots from the albergue and the city.

The walk out of Astorga was long, it took some five kilometers to reach the next town and city limits.

I walked up behind Matt and passed him quickly. He realised what I was doing and started running. We were 10 meters from the limits of the next town and he disgracefully announced his triumph.

This was our five kilometer mark. We had a short break and were off. We walked at speed towards the third town of the walk. We passed the second town in 40 minutes, and then our break town was reached in 90 minutes. We made 10 minute kilometers, that’s fast.

It was then only another seven kilometers to our destination town, Rabanal. The path was along the road for some time. The dryness and general look of the path here reminded me of Australia. In fact, it could have been any part of Heathcote Road.

We marched. We kept marching. There was so much marching. Eventually, I could see Matt about 100 meters, he was walking with two pilgrims. I walked a bit quicker and realised it was our German friend, Kirsten Johanna. We walked with her and her friend all the way to Rabanal.

The path was really similar to home, I can’t stress that enough. It could have been a walk from Spain to home. In town, we had a drink at the bar right at the edge. We sat there for thirty minutes before we thought it best to start looking for an albergue.

We got our things together and walked up the road. The albergue was quite literally next door, attached to the bar even. Convenient!

The albergue had a dorm for four, 7€ per pilgrim. With a well-equipped kitchen and garden, we were set. I lay on banana lounge in the shade and read my book. Matt came around and petted the pretty puppy, it was so cute.