Day 24 - Villafranca del Bierzo

It seems like a long time since i last found internet, but it´s only been 3 days. But it´s been a much more eventful 3 days than the long constant meseta. There´s been hills, people claiming the world will end in 2 months (Tomas the hospitalero in manjarin), small children tipping over wheels barrows, several culinary inventions - Jam and tuna sandwiches, panic when i thought my camera had broken only to find it had run out of batteries and another case of me almost seeing the last of my walking stick when i left it in astorga.

It´s crazy to think that i´m under 200km to go now and will probably finish in 7-9 days. I´m thinking about continuing walking on to finesterre, but i´m also aware of the impending flight back to australia and the huge amount of friends i´d still like to visit. I haven´t even started to look at how i will travel round, so i guess it´s going to be expensive. On the bright side the camino and spain in general is dirt cheap. Last night i paid our tab after 2 drinks each at a bar for 5 people and it came to €13, I could easily spend that on myself in Melbourne.

Walking in a group has also slowed me down a lot, not so much in distance as in getting up later and arriving later. Today I got to the albergue at 7:20pm (though 40mins before the stragglers at 8pm), but it was an amzingly beautiful walk over the hills through the vineyards in the setting sun.

Arriving late seems to work well the overflow beds are always better and quieter than the dormitory ones and we haven´t once been rejected (well it happened once to the others when i stopped in sahagun). Tonight we again have our own private room for the 5 of us. It´s funny that we do so well for beds by arriving late, when there are people who get up and leave 2 hours before its even light just so they can get the first beds - yet they only end up in the dormitory of 20 or more snorers and miss the sites along the way.