Day 24 Leon to Villar de Mazarife (April 11)

Before starting our walk we had breakfast in the Parador. A huge buffet! We saw Ann there. We left late, around 0945. Dare I say it? Another beautiful day in Espana. We walked a few miles to La Virgen del Camino and had a coffee. we continued on and shortly after, we ran into Dieter, and then Sara. Doesn´t seem like too many people took this alternate route. The way here was nice. The past few days we have had the snow covered mountains in the distance to our North. Today I didn´t see them until we left Oncina de la Valdocina. When I turned to see where Cullen was, there were the mountains. The way took us through farm fields, but where there weren´t fields planted, there were wild flowers. We arrived in Chozas de Abajo and had a coke and beer. The bartender was very nice. There were a couple of interesting Santiago statures along the way. We had decided to stay at Alberque Tio Pepes before we arrived in town. We had a room with 2 sets of bunk beds and happily, no one else stayed in our room. It was noisy as the Brierley book said it would be. Was hoping to catch up on the blog posting there but alas the advertised internet was not working. Very disappointing since it was one of the main reasons for staying. We had the menu of the day there and the food was not good. And it was noisy until 10:00 pm. There was a tub in one of the bathrooms and it had a stopper. If you are looking for a rest in the afternoon, this is not the place for you. Though Dieter got a private room for 20 euros and he said it was very quiet. Lots of 20 somethings hanging around making quite a racket on a Sunday afternoon. We did see 3 storks´nests in the church across the street from the albergue. The owner did give us free shots of orujo after dinner, so maybe it wasn´t such a bad place after all.