Media (8)
León, extra time: cathedral, alignments, and relationships changing pace.
July 3, still in León before leaving again.
July 3 started late: after the long night the day before I woke up calmly, and from there the day became a continuous game of meetups to re-fit. In the morning I found in my phone a real mini photoshoot of selfies Ocean had taken with my phone the night before, when we were sitting outside in an alley. From those signals, I had the suspicion she liked me a bit.
With Catherine we wrote from the morning to manage to meet before she left the city. We kept trying to line up around the cathedral area: I had just crossed Mark and Carla, they were leaving, she was arriving. In the end we realigned there, at León’s classic convergence point.
In parallel there was Andrius, who wanted to organize meeting up and understand plans for the next day. Between shifted timing, last-minute showers, movements between albergues and park, even with him it was a day of “I’m arriving soon.” But that is also the beauty of long stops: less rigidity, more human fitting.
On the social side, the wave from the previous evening was still felt: the little group with Francesco, Laura, Juan, Ocean, Giselle, and the others was consolidating. Francesco was in full showman mode, with the whole Anita story that kept the day’s ironic tone alive. Sometimes one message was enough to reopen the same energy as the night before.
In the evening, as often happens in cities, dinner plans kept changing. In the end I stayed on the practical side: I managed my return to albergue and kept food light with what I had there, waiting to understand if and when to rejoin the others.
In Pamplona Party People, meanwhile, logistical updates kept coming from every direction: some on alternative variants, some under storms, some already projected to the next stage. It was clear that the “group” was no longer a single block but a mobile constellation.
Old town full, waiting in front of the cathedral, park lawn in the afternoon, and that gentle tiredness of a day without kilometers but not without movement.
Rest days are never really still: they are used to put relationships, energy, and direction back in order before returning to the trail.
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Day notes