Startpoint: Reliegos; Endpoint: Leon; Distance walked: 25km; Steps taken: 31,648.

I’m sitting in a hotel room in Leon, drinking rum and coke from the minibar, discussing attitudes to climate change and giggling at the noises our stomachs our making. We had kebabs for lunch.

I’m sharing a twin room with two other pilgrims: one person has to sleep on a campbed in the corner. We had a democratic vote and the two lads decided the girl should take the campbed. Chivalry is not a core tenant of our pilgrimage.

At the hostel yesterday, two of us clubbed together to get our laundry washed (in a washing machine!) and dried (in a tumble drier!). We were given out to by the landlady for trying to use the drier without calling her first. Apparently we had forgotten to insert the carefully folded piece of cardboard in the right place to hold the ‘on’ button pressed in. Having clean pyjamas last night followed by clean towels today is almost more luxury than I can stand.

The shower in our hotel bathroom has a massage function. It feels like two small children squirting lukewarm water-pistols at your back.

We arrived in Leon after climbing through dusty boring industrial estates and a couple of sleepy suburbs. The walk today was not fun – 25km beside highways and past car dealerships. But the last kilometre through the old town made up for a little bit of it.

In Leon, we caught up with one of the Irish lads from early on. We spent the afternoon reminiscing and gossiping about hostels and pilgrims. We raided the minibar after checking into our hotel, but it didn’t take us very long.

There’s a hiking and outdoor shop right on the route through the old town – that man must make a fortune. Good English, no competition and a captive market of rich tourists desperate for clean clothes. We went in for a look around: One lad took about 2 minutes to pick out a new micro-fleece (the mornings are quite cold); it took me about 4 minutes to choose a pair of shorts (the afternoons are quite hot); then we waited an hour and a half for a girl to choose a pair of shoes (her feet were sore).

Not a let else happened during the walk. I was going to put in a story about a wasp nearly drowning in my coke as we ate lunch, but that would be just clutching at straws.

Buen Camino.