On Keith’s way to Sahagun he passed into a new state called Leon. It’s good that he had this landmark moment because otherwise the day was “pretty dull.” He said there weren’t really any sights to see in the small villages that he passed through that day and there weren’t people passing him except for a few on bikes that whizzed by. Near the outskirts of Sahagun there were three people who finally did show up and pass him, but it was pretty much at the end of the day.

He walked just about 20 km this time and said the last couple km took a while. He could see the hotel sign from miles away and thought to himself, “I’ll bet that’s it!” He thought maybe he should get the binoculars out to confirm if it, but got to thinking about how in the movies they take out the binoculars and it never helps—“instead of seeing a far off oasis you see dancing girls.” (I totally had a Crosby and Hope vision as he described that–“The Road to Sahagun.”)

Once in Sahagun he was hoping to bump into the Canadian couple or the Irish guys, but no luck. Not even when he slowly trolled past what was supposed to be an Irish bar. He did bump into the older German lady who, unfortunately, had terrible blisters on her feet that day. She said it had been fine right up until it went terribly wrong. There was an American woman who’d been raised in Switzerland who casually joined their conversation with a “What’s up?” She could speak English and German—the best of both worlds.

That night he slept really well. I think I was as happy to hear that as he was to experience it. That gets us to today which would be when he’d need to hop a train and jump forward to Sarria in order to complete his final 115 km walk to Santiago. As he made his way from the hotel to the train station he passed through a street festival with all sorts of booths selling special sausages, cheeses, hams, salted fish, as well as some foods he had no idea what they were. Plus fruits, vegetables, and a lot of clothes with what looked like a flourishing market in women’s undergarments.

The train ride was so long that once they got to a certain point about an hour away from Sarria they rechecked tickets and directed everyone to specific cars based on their destination. In the cars all of the seats in the front part faced backwards and all the seats in back faced forward. After the adjustments to destination cars he was facing forward, but when he looked back he found that there were no longer any cars behind them. They had just dropped off the whole back of the train.

There was an interesting group of pilgrims on the train today. They all got off at the city of Leon. There was a pair of Spanish guys and one would show up and give Keith useful pieces of information then disappear again. For example: “the train is 5 minutes late.” It was nice of him, but kind of odd because most of the Spanish pilgrims can’t or don’t make the effort to speak English.

This new region is very different than the earlier places on this trek. Keith says it looks more like home (Washington state)—less desert and more green trees. He sounded happy about that.