July 6

July 6
Villar de Mazarife to Astorga 32.4km
When traveling you can become too comfortable with your surroundings and even let your guard down. This morning as people were waking up (5-5:30) there was a man checking out peoples sleeping bunks when they went to the bathroom to get ready for their day. Lorie was in the bathroom when this man checked out her bunk while I was still in the upper. He made his way around the albergue doing this same thing for a half hour of so blending in as a pilgrim. Finally, as several of us started to figure out what he was doing, he left. He did not take anything of ours, but as we hiked that day we found out that two women from our albergue were missing money. We were told that the closer we get to Santiago the more often we may see examples of this.
Todays temperature topped out at 38C or just over 100F. No clouds and little shade along the way. We left this morning before 7 to get ahead of the heat and finished our days hike at 2 climbing into the beautiful town of Astorga. There is a monumental cathedral across from our albergue and next to the Gaudi building known as the Bishop´s Palace. We went to a plaza to enjoy a cold beer and eat a light dinner of cheese, tomatos, olives, and nuts. While there we watched six or seven older local gentlemen playing dominos. Sometimes the game got a little heated. Spanish or English you know someone is upset about how another is playing.
Our albergue has a foot fountain where we soaked our feet in the cold water getting some relief from the long days hike. As we leave the meseta today and tomorrow, we begin to enter rolling hills that are actually the foot hills to another mountain range. In this transition we begin to see a change in plant life. We were getting used to seeing sparce grass and forbs, few trees, and farm fields of corn with elaborate irrigation. Now we are seeing more trees which they call humid forests.  To sum up today - long and hot!
Buen camino