Day Twenty-one - Leon to Villar de Mazarife - 22km

Back to walking today.
It was hard getting going this morning! After a good rest I thought that I should be full of beans but instead all of me seemed to ache! Bad back, bad knees, shoes too tight, shoes rubbing and obviously going to make huge blisters all over my feet..... All this on top of a nasty walk through the outskirts of Leon.
But after 7km we turned onto a quiet country path and the aches and pains disappeared!
The countryside spread out around us as we climbed back onto the meseta. There were places to stop for drinks at Fresno del Camino , Ocina and Chozas de Abajo and before we knew it there was just a quick 4.6km hike into Villar de Mazarife.
We are staying in a private room in an albergue tonight which is a new experience. The owner is a little terrifying! There are 5 private rooms here (we have one) and the upper floor houses about 60 people in bunk beds. We need to walk through the bunk dwellers in order to get outside. So, in order to get outside we need to pass by snoring people of all ages in various stages on undress. Not nice to see or to smell and we are happy we are in a private room with our own shower and toilet.
We needed to do washing as we couldn't find a laundrette in Leon and the hotel wanted 4Euros to wash one pair of trousers!!!!!!! The albergue advertised washing at 3euros a load so we asked the scary lady if we could do some - she has whisked away our clothes and now we are waiting to get them back. The problem is they need to be line dried and we don't have any clothes pegs and it's very windy! Now we have to ask scary lady if she has some we can borrow!
We may be wearing wet clothes tomorrow!

Of course I have air-conditioning in my shed!

Leon is in the distance!

Our route to Santiago is marked by yellow arrows.
These yellow arrows took us 300m from our route but they were worth following!

and a small jamon boccadillo for lunch please.

A modern bell tower!

We can see Villar de Mazarife in the distance!

And here we are - welcomed by a beautiful mosaic.