Day 30- Bercianos to Mansilla de las Mulas

Walked Today: 8.2 mi /Camino 2022: 200 mi

Even without alarms, our bodies are now on automatic to wake at 6:00 a.m.! So off we went into the dark, expecting rain at any minute, but not wearing our ponchos, yet.

We felt some light sprinkles just before entering Burgo Ranero… but they went away as we stepped into our “routine” breakfast stop, La Costa el Adobe.

Our first thoughts were remembering our breakfast rendezvous on September 5, 2017 with Ken and Mandy, special Camino friends from South Africa and fellow bloggers. They are planning a return to the Camino in 2023. A cafe con leche toast to you both and Buen Camino!

We called a taxi to take us to Reliegos. He arrived a half-hour later and we hopped into his car. We both were surprised when we saw the inside, which looked familiar.

We had a very nice chat for the next 12 miles as we covered a section of the Camino that we didn’t like too much and which dropped our total walk to just over 8 miles. The driver spoke very good English and we learned that he had lived in Texas and California. Jim asked if he had solar cells at home and he said yes, but not batteries… “generated his own electricity during the day and bought it during the night.” He charged us 18€ for the ride, a very quiet one, and wished us well as we put on our ponchos and began walking in the rain.

We continued for the next 3 miles walking in a light rain but comfortable and dry in our ponchos.

The rain we are experiencing is forecast to continue through tomorrow afternoon. It is the remnants of Hurricane Danielle which affected mostly the western coast of Portugal on September 11-12 with rain and strong winds. We are seeing rain and wind, but nothing approaching hurricane strength.

We arrived in Mansilla de Las Mulas just before noon and waited 30 minutes for our room to be ready.

We took the next several hours to find an open restaurant for our main meal, dodging showers in between, then settled back into our warm, dry room for the remainder of the day.