Camino Trip Day 23: Camino Day 19:

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We got up a little later than usual since we didn't have a long day, only 20 kilometers. We ate breakfast at the Bar Cuadros Cafe at 6:50, then made our way out of Astorga. Astorga is pretty good size, so it took us 20 minutes or so. We entered Valdevieja, and left it behind in no time. It is basically a suburb of Astorga. Next, we passed through Murias de Rechivaldo without even knowing it, and entered Santa Catalina de Somoza at about 8:45am. We stopped at a cafe/bar for a coffee break, then plodded on. About an hour later, we entered El Ganso, the last stop before our destination for the day, Rabanal del Camino. Here we stopped in the famous Cowboy Bar and then started the long haul of about 6.6 kilometers. It was a lot of up and downs, but we finally made it at about 12:15, and checked into the Municipal Albergue. It wasn't anything special, but we got two lower bunks, and I found a way to hook my computer up to run the battery down. The albergue had a microwave and a refrigerator/freezer, but they didn't serve meals, so went across the plaza to the Bar El Pilar for lunch. Manoli had a really nice salad and I have an empanada de carne (a baked meat sandwich). After lunch, we lounged around, took showers, then we went out to a supermarket for something for dinner. I ended up buying a package of ensaladilla rusa and stuck it in the freezer for a few minutes. It wasn't that bad. Oh, and I bought an ice cream, which I ate on the way back to the albergue. After dinner, we just lounged around, me doing the blog and watching some Arrow on Netflix.

We got to sleep before 10pm, because we had a long climb to the Cruz de Fiero tomorrow, then a long downhill to Molinaseca, our stop for the night.

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