It had rained during the night and it was still raining in the morning; all morning, in fact.  It made walking an obstacle course, constantly searching for high ground or patches of grass to avoid the sticky mud.  A frigid wind blew constantly and it was really just a miserable day.  I walked the whole way straight through,  5 hours long, as stopping wasn’t really an option and my legs were paying for it in the afternoon.

Luckily the sun did break through as I approached Salamanca so I had a scenic, if not warm, approach to the city.  My albergue is right around the corner from the twin cathedrals and I squeaked in just in time to drop my pack off as they close between 1-4pm. 

I strolled the pedestrian street during a break in the weather, and nicely timed lunch during a deluge of rain.  I chose a restaurant with wi-fi of course, and during my meal I booked my plane ticket home.  Yup, I’m going back to California 500 kms in.

We’ve had a quite devastating fire at our home in California, it’s pretty much totaled but luckily no one was injured and absolutely all our possessions are safe as we had moved out a couple of weeks ago in preparation for renovations.  So although there’s not much I can do but help liaise with mom & the insurance companies, I’d rather be there than trudging along in the cold and rain in Spain.  I’ll spend a day in Zamora tomorrow, then 1.5 days in Madrid before flying back Wednesday.