Day 20 - León to San Martin del Camino

Today's walk wasn't bad. I kept it short on account of too many Calimochos the night before. San Martin del Camino is a quiet little town, as many of them have been. There were very few pilgrims staying in the municipal albergue (there were 3 of us!). It was rather cold already in the afternoon, so we knew it was going to be a cold night. The heating at the albergue was not on, so I was a little worried about the night. My sleeping bag (the Marmot Pounder) kept me plenty warm throughout the night. Getting up in the morning was difficult as I didn't want to leave the warmth of my sleeping bag.

The three of us in San Martin del Camino made me realize how my trip was really the United Nations del Camino. One guy was French, but also spoke Spanish. And the other guy was Brazillian, but spoke Spanish as well. Notice that nobody else spoke English. With my French better than my Spanish, I was speaking in my horrible French to the French guy who was translating it to Spanish for the other guy. I took several years of French in school, but the last time I did that was 1993. The last time I've tried to use French? 1993.

Here's a list of the countries of people I've met on this trip (in no particular order):

• United States (VERY few)
• Canada
• Australia
• Holland
• Belgium
• Spain (incl. Mallorca and the Canary Islands)
  
• France
• Germany
• Austria
• Iceland
• Poland
• Brazil
• Argentina
• Italy
• England
• Ireland
• S. Korea
• Estonia
• Denmark
• Japan
• Norway
• Finland
  

It was quite an eclectic mix of people. Generally, everyone speaks English. I noticed a lot of the Spaniards (doing El Camino) didn't speak English. But we were all able to somehow communicate our needs and they were met.