10/02 – Astudillo to Sahagun

As we rode along today, there were no shortages of songs about rain going through our heads… “Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head,” Singing in the Rain,” “Rainy Days and Mondays,” and even “McArthur Park” (someone left the cake out in the rain)! You get the picture! I apologize if any of you now have any of these tunes stuck in your head today!! We woke up to temperatures in the low 60’s, which isn’t bad for riding bike…but what is bad for riding bike is constant, and heavy wind and rain!

It was a slog! We did manage to ride 54 km (33.55 miles), at approximately 6 miles per hour – all of you cyclists know that that is not an impressive statistic! I had a hard time keeping my bike on the road at times; needless to say, I drafted behind Pete as much as I could! Around 3:00 p.m., with another 14 miles to today’s destination, we pulled into a little town called Calzadilla de la Cueza to decide what to do. The only person on the street was the hostess of an Albergue – she saw how wet we were and invited us into her shelter, telling us there were no beds anywhere in town, but that we could bring our bikes around and pull them into her place for a while. We gladly accepted, and within minutes, her husband was serving us dinner, offering hot showers, and then called us a van to come and take us to our reserved lodging for tonight. It would be a three hour wait for the van. Normally that kind of wait would try our patience, but we happily agreed. While we waited, we had some great conversations with people from Canada and Australia, and were reminded of the kindness that is everywhere.

There are definitely beams of light in even the rainiest of days…sometimes they are as simple as extending a shelter (albergue) to some wet and tired travelers! After a few hours of drying off, visiting with new people, and eating some delicious local food, our shuttle driver came and we were off for our lodging! Back to the Camino tomorrow morning – hopefully singing, “Here Comes the Sun!”

Buen Camino!