Monoculture everywhere

Yesterday I think I ran about 36 km. I miscalculated a bit. The last 10 km were tough, but luckily I had sent my backpack, which is a disadvantage because I can't spontaneously stop earlier. But I made it. I was on the road for 12 hours. I probably ran for about 10 hours of that. The rest was breaks. The second part of yesterday's section was extremely boring because we passed hundreds of hectares of open fields with hardly any shrubs or trees to be seen. The last few days have been mainly flat and mostly farmland. But even that was varied and beautiful to look at. Especially in the morning. Yesterday, however, it was extremely boring. Acres and acres of wheat, wheat, wheat. Monoculture on a large scale. This actually means that there is no more landscape. It becomes dull to the eye. Hardly any bushes and trees, few plants, flowers, and herbs, and therefore hardly any insects or birds. This becomes noticeable. The eye, the senses become bored, and internally one becomes monotonous as well. The landscape is basically suffocated, you can see from the soil that it is depleted and lacks nutrients, and not a single cornflower or poppy blooms among the wheat plants. What is natural weed and is meant to supply nutrients to the soil has been completely sprayed away.

Well, when I found out that the next day I would have to walk 17 km in a row through wheat fields and along the road, I made the decision to skip some stages, also because I don't have enough time to walk the entire way. So today I'm taking the bus to Leon.

By the way, I stayed overnight in a hostel in Carrion de la Conte. The hostel belonged to a St. Clare Monastery. Simple but clean. 7 euros per night with the usual washing machine, dryer, washbasin, shower, bathroom, kitchen, and clothesline. When I settled in, I ended up in the church associated with the supermarket, where a church service happened to be starting. When I stepped through the entrance gate, the altar was on the left side and on the right side sat about 20 nuns in black, praying facing the altar behind a large iron gate. In the first moment, it was a somewhat startling and unreal image. Almost like a picture, unreal. I had never seen anything like it before. I only looked at the nuns for about 2 seconds and then, somewhat shocked, I sat down in one of the church pews, and the church service started. In front of me were women from the village, some of them sisters wearing white with head coverings participating in the church service. The whole church service was, of course, in Spanish, so I didn't understand anything. Every now and then, there was singing. It was impressive to hear the nuns behind me singing. Harmonious, with strong voices, and in chorus. What an experience to see that there are people, especially women, who dedicate their whole lives to focusing on one thing, not just for themselves but also for others. Especially the feminine aspect and the culture surrounding the Blessed Virgin Mary in all her manifestations are something that deeply impresses me. There are so many different depictions of Mary. The mourning one, the grieving one, the pure one, the virgin one, the protective one, the dominating one with one foot on the dragon, the loving one, the one immersed in inner contemplation, a state of mind that is also called "reverie".

During the course of the church service, I had to turn around again to look at the nuns. You don't want to stare, after all. Again, what I saw was like a picture, unreal and very impressive.