León’s a big city and leaving it this morning in the narrow, twisting medieval part challenged our direction-finding. It’s kind of like a maze, and we popped out a bit away from the Camino.

We knew we were close but couldn’t see any directional signage. Just then, a short, older woman in a brown puffy coat called out to us, “Camino de Santiago!” and pointed to a different direction than we were heading.

We realized she was helping us get back on track, but she started saying a lot (in Spanish, of course) with gestures that looked like ‘go straight then dogleg this way, then turn that way, then turn that way…’ Yikes!

When she realized we weren’t comprehending she started escorting us!

Just then, a younger woman dressed in some sort of traditional garb came along from a cross street. We each thought, is she Roma? or what is this outfit all about?

She seemed to tell the older woman she was headed to ‘San Marco’ and she would take us there! So the first woman handed us off to the second woman and off we went.

We thought she might go a block or two with us, but no! She walked at least 10 minutes with us, through twisting and turning and crossing streets we wouldn’t have figured out without firing up our phones.

It wasn’t until we could see a massive old building ahead that we started seeing Camino markers again.

As we arrived, we could see that next to this big old building is a big convention center-type building. And, trickling towards it from every direction were other people in all sorts of traditional clothing!

Lori asked the woman what was happening and, of course, out of the several-sentence answer she gave us the only word Lori thought she understood was ‘baille’–dance!

Once we got to our lodging for the night, Lori investigated and figured out that today was the Las Canteras Ceremony (https://www.leonestradicion.com/en/las-cantaderas/. Too bad we didn’t have time to stick around and check it out; but we did have our own little piece of the action!

It was as if two angels stepped out of the mists of time and guided us west, on our way to Santiago. We are grateful once more to the generosity of the people of the Camino.

Photos from top clockwise: León street bustling last night now quiet Sunday morning; San Marco – formerly an inn, a prison, barracks, now a posh hotel; on the road west; tea break!