León

Walked today: No walk Camino2023: 185mi

This morning the plan was to take the bus from Mansilla de las Mulas to León. We plan to spend tonight and tomorrow night in León before continuing our journey to Santiago.

There is always a bit of anxiety on the Camino when you try something new and wonder if your information/directions/processes are correct. Especially if it might mean extra walking, walking in hot sun or long, unproductive delays. Today we are sitting outside of a bus station that is locked up tight, no one else around and the bus is supposed to arrive in 20 minutes.

Then, out of nowhere, another pilgrim walked up, two locals with suitcases and a young guy dressed in a suit carrying a computer. 5 minutes later a bus drives up, opens the door and to Jim’s question, “Leon?”, he responds “si”. Yes!!!

We climbed the steps into the bus, paid 3.60€ for two tickets, found a seat, and 25 minutes later we arrived at the León bus terminal.

Once again on familiar ground (this is our 5th visit to León), we stopped at the kiosk to buy our bus ticket out of León for Friday morning. But the kiosk was not operating and there were no attendants nearby to help, so we walked to a familiar bar (Cafereria Duna) and had breakfast.

Last year we were told at the bus station, that it wasn’t necessary to buy a ticket in advance as you could buy one from the bus driver when we boarded. However, before we began boarding the next day, the driver had all ticket holders (paper or electronic) line up, and non-ticket holders get in line after them. We, fortunately, got the last two seats available on the bus! So, this time we definitely wanted to have a paper ticket in hand.

We found the bus schedule for our Friday morning departure on the internet, while having breakfast at the “Duna”. Our best option was the 6:00 am bus. So, after breakfast we returned to the bus station and purchased our two tickets (7.20€) with the help of an attendant ( the kiosk was still out of operation) and left triumphantly from the terminal… another mission accomplished.

Now, today’s main objective is to checkin to our home base for the next two days. Problem… checkin time is 3:00 pm!! And we completed the bus ticket mission at 9:30. So, with 5 1/2 hours to kill, we decided to use google maps to determine the most direct walking route to our hotel and to do a recon run to get our bearings, refresh our memories of the landmarks of this fascinating city and nail down the precise location of our hotel and walking time from the bus station to the hotel.

Having located our hotel, we found a nice bar a few steps away and stopped for breakfast #2.

At Bar Marbella, Jim asked the barkeep for the wifi password (contraseña). She said it was “leonmarbella”… and added very proudly that she was from Marbella, Spain. Jim quickly said we thought Marbella was very nice and that we had stayed there in 2017… and ordered our drinks. While she was getting our order, Jim pulled out his photos of our place in Marbella including local scenes, validating his claim. The smiling lady then responded by preparing two slices of tortilla, gratis, to celebrate our new bond.

At a few minutes before noon, we walked the few steps to our hotel and as we were about to start pushing buttons, the door opened, revealing three people: two checking out guests and Ivan, our contact with the hotel. He invited us into his office but revealed that our room was still not likely to be ready until 3:00, but he would call us if he was able to get it ready sooner.

We chatted briefly, getting better acquainted, then left to kill some more time.

After spending the next hour exploring our “old” stomping grounds, we decided to go back to the hotel and request waiting on site until our room was ready (to maybe create a more visual sense of urgency).

Jim called and was informed our room would be ready in 5 minutes. The 1:00 sun was beginning to wear us down, even in the shade… as today was on its way to becoming the hottest of the year at 100F. So we stepped up to the hotel door and droopily, relieved, waited 5 long minutes for it to open.

At 1:10 we were in our room, beating the official check-in time by nearly 2 hours, accomplishing our main objective for the day! And it was all we had envisioned for our two day stay in León.

We didn’t leave our luxurious new digs for the rest of the day and got to bed early, even after some afternoon napping, and didn’t set an alarm for tomorrow, our day off!