Day 1 of the Camino - Leon Cathedral to Villar de Mazarife - 20km

What a wonderful start to my Camino!!

Having secured my Camino pass late the precious evening, I made my way to the hostel to get an early night for a 7am start.

The hostel had a pod system - which meant I had a pod with a curtain - it was a pleasant introduction to sleeping in a hostel.

I didn’t sleep well - as I was mulling over the journey ahead.

I got up and went to the communal area where I found a girl putting on creams, bandages and tape on her feet - then packing her very large rucksack - I felt quite small - should I be taping my feet up and using a massage ball - would I need to?? It felt like the first day at school - where everyone else knew what they were doing and you you absolutely didn’t.

I went for breakfast in the shared buffet kitchen - to my horror I met even more experience people (people with tattoos depicting Camino Shells on their tanned muscular legs, legs framed by veteran hiking socks, well worn walking boots that told a lot of history compared to my day zero walking shoes.

I did my best to negotiate the kitchen - settling for a coffee and 3 pieces of toast with apricot jam (no butter to be found). Another chap came into the kitchen and tutted to me that there was only white bread (I nodded in solidarity as I slowly removed the white toast I was eating from my mouth).

Then Debra (as I would come to know) came in - clearly this girl knew what she was doing! Her first comment was that she had stayed up to late - party animal and very fresh from a long trek already I thought to myself.

Later, By chance we met at the front door of Leon Cathedral and thank goodness we did - Debra knows how to spot a Camino arrow or sign.

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/88d13c_e9feb5b070884350b2084073c9153c5d/480p/mp4/file.mp4