Day Three

Ok, the official name for the town I so ungraciously called 'turdpile' is Calzadilla de los Hermanillos. Our hostess, the chef/ma from the previous evenings dinner, was way too nice to leave it at that, and besides...the next town deserves the name even more. Mansilla de los Mulas..'Hands of the Mule?'...This was a 22k ride from the last town, across Roman Rubble Roads...politely...a constant butt massage from a sadistic massuese using a bat. Poor Dad & Brian have no suspension, so it is even worse for them. Mansilla is where we get our first flat, Tom picks up a spike through the rear tire. I take the opportunity to look for wireless and notice mule size prints in the cement sidewalk, and later, large piles of green goo in the road, so Mansilla takes the Turd Queen crown. Dad later gets surrounded by sheep, a whole flock being driven through town. One photo in this post is of the town gate, they all had/have walls, and the gates closed and guarded at night. There is a nice scene of
the wheat fields and pilgrims meandering into the distance, and an old bridge, one of many...there is a photo of what the RRR surface looks like. A decently maintained Roman Road has flagstones, we think this is the road base. This was the road from Rome to the mines in Astorga, where we will be in a few days.
We cheat in Mansilla, and catch a bus the final 15k into Leon, the Camino books suggest this, the way in is alongside freeways, through grimy factories, and over bridges with tissue-paper thin spaces to ride. After we saw this from the bus, we aredamn glad! Saturday morning we will do the same to get out of Leon.