Ponferrada to Villafranca del Bierzo in the heat

One thing I forgot to say yesterday about Ponferrada is that the albergue is divided into small rooms of 4 beds, and we ended up sharing with Andrew, the man who I had walked with on the way in.  While I was hunting down a new quick dry towel, he had found a bedbug in the room, so when I got back, one of the hospitaleros explained what had happened.  They use an all-natural spray to kill the little critters, and so had sprayed everything in the room, sleeping bags, clothes that were out, backpacks, the whole kit and kaboodle.  As none of us has been bitten so far, I am hoping that we were not carrying them, but apparently they can be a problem.  I have heard from another walker that there is a problem with them in Cacabelos, but as we were not planning to stay there, I was hoping we'd avoid them.   Anyway, we do not seem to have been feasted on, so I am again hoping that it was a Lone Ranger, who didn't survive.

The temperatures have been rising, and so we decided to leave the albergue in Ponferrada really early and get some miles done before mid day.  This turned out to bet a bit of a mistake, as Nico was still upset by the events of the day before, and actually needed breakfast.   Unfortunately, we didn't get to an open cafe for over an hour, so we had to nurse him through with apple juice and little Madeleine cakes that we had bought in Foncebadon and not eaten.  Once we had had breakfast, he was fine, and we kept walking.  We made very good progress, and seemed to zip through the towns and villages pretty quickly t first. Then the heat started, and we slowed down.  We waked through Cacabelos, as it was still a little early for lunch, and the next town was only just over 2km away.  However, it was 2km up hill, and we began to run out of steam.  Fortunately, at the very end end of the next village of Pieros, there was a very tranquil cafe/bar where we got cold drinks and bocadillos.  There are times when we seem to start a trend - when we order, there was only one other person in the bar, when we left, 2 other groups had arrived.  Fortified by our sandwiches, we hit the road again, having decided to take the slightly shorter road option,m due to the heat.

This was a good idea, as the temperature climbed to over 40 C.

 Villafranca is sometimes called the little Santiago, because in medieval times, pilgrims who were unable to continue to Santiago, were blessed and absolved in the church at the beginning of the town. Of course, we walked straight past this church without realizing it!  We headed through the town to the private albergue on the other side, which had been recommended to us.  The recommendation turned out to be a good one - we got a private room for the three of us, which was a blessing.  We showered, gathered the dirty clothes, and I decided to use the washing machine and get some other things washed as well.  Nico lay down on the bed and fell asleep almost immediately. I had a shorter nap and then Jonathan came up, fell asleep, so I went and blogged.

It was still hot at 6pm when I woke them up, and so rather than visit the town, we went down to the river beach area for a while, where the boys paddled.  After a while we walked slowly back and stopped at a restaurant  for dinner.  

We tried to have an early night, and sadly I forgot to take some pictures with the iPad, but I do have some only camera to put up later.  Thus another day on the Camino came to an end.