Into Galacia

Wow, what a difference a couple of days make, in the past 2 days I´ve experienced my worst day on the Camino and my best. I´ve left the flat land of the maseta and now in the mountains of the Provence of eastern Galacia, and it couldn´t be any different. Also today I past under the 200 kilometer mark of my journey. I estimate to be in Santiago around the 23rd, we´ll see how that goes.

OK, the worst, how do I explain this other than the term daywalkers or a better term I came up with daytalkers. We left Astorga yesterday morning and started the uphill climb into the foothills. About 2 hours into our walk we started seeing buses pulling up along side the Camino and discharging dozens and dozens of people. In fact we got swallowed up in a group and had to kick it up a knoch to get away from them, they all had on their little baby backpacks for their walk. Now they obviously have every right in the world to walk the Camino too but what made it difficult was their nonstop talking, Every couple of minutes I would hear another group coming up on me so I would let them pass, didn´t do much good since another group would show up in a few minutes. Today I met a woman from Puerto Rico, we were talking and she all of the sudden mentioned how she hated yesterday, I asked why and she had the same exact feelings I did! It literally looked like we were all leaving the stadium after a game there were so many of them.

Now, the best, I am now in the mountain of Galacia, it is so beautiful. When we arrived in Rabinal del Camino it didn´t give away the surprise we would have today. When we started out it was foggy, the kink you only see in the mountains. We started a slow incline walk up and up and up, but the great part it was gradual. We arrived in the next village and the Camino provided. Yesterday I mentioned to my friends how I would like an old fashioned western or American breakfast, the Bocadillas and pastries are getting a little old, well to my surprise the bar we stopped in had Muesli and Cornflakes! And on top of that they had large cups for coffee! The day was starting off great. After leaving the bar we had a 20 minute walk to Cruz de Ferro, one of the waymarkers of the Camino, people bring stones from home or leave a note, I left a note for a special person, a person I never met but has touched my life. We continued on through the mountains and were rewarded with unbelievable views and moments. This part of the Camino was also the most techincal in that the trail was very rocking on the decents and there were a lot of them. Time wise this was my longest day, 9 hours on the Camino, but went 27 km. I feel like I´m in a true mountain hideaway, the village is called Molinaseca.

It´s always unbelieveable how your day goes, one thing that stands out is that someone you´ve met weeks ago and hadn´t seen in over a week all of a sudden shows up in the same spot. Mittu the Finnish girl I gave my poncho to walked into the bar we were taking a break in and I hadn´t seen her since Friday or Saturday, the days kind of run together. But the Camino provides.

Well folks time to sign off, I will post some photos when I have more time, thanks for the support!
Buen Camino!!!

The Rain in Spain is Mainly on the Plain

You all know the term, ´Be careful what you wish for, you may get it¨, well after Sundays day of 80 degree weather it has been raining on the Maseta, on top of that the temperature drop to about 45-50 degrees and yesterday I walked 20 kilometers in rain and about a 30-40`mph wind! My have things have changed! But hey, if you´re going to do the Camino you should get everything it has to offer. On Tuesday I passed my halfway point to Santiago, I now have about 330 km to go, at the pace I´m at I´m looking at arriving around the 23rd. Sometimes it´s hard to believe that I´ve walked almost 500 km or over 300 miles, but then at the end of the day I can feel it. Two days ago I stayed in a village with no services so the people that run the Alburgue provide dinner, after a day of cold wind and rain pasta was on the menu, and what made it unique one of the Pilgrims was Italian, so he was assigned as cook.

Yesterday was the most trying day of all so far. Now I´ve done my fair share of outdoor activities with all my trips to Canada but nothing compared to that. I was in an area that had no protection from the rain and wind and the rain was coming from a right angle, my left side was soaked but right less so. My main thought was something from my favorite movie/series whatever you want to call it, Band of Brothers, Major Winters would always be on his men to ¨KEEP MOVING´whenever they were under fire, so my inspiration for the day was the men of the 101st Airborne Division, 506 Regiment, Easy Company, anything I encountered was nothing compared to what they faced.

Yesterday I was in the large city of Leon, the bigger cities do have their advantages but the noise and crowds are a drawback. Today I took the Road Less Traveled and I´m glad I did. The people I´ve been walking with and most all other Pilgrims decided to take a route that was next to the main road. I took a secondary route and experienced something unique in this day and age of the Camino. I pretty much had it to myself. When I turned left and said Buen Camino to the others I only encountered one other Pilgrim, he passed my on the road but stopped in the next village. I only rested a couple of minutes and the Camino was my own! I walked for almost 2 hours to the next village, occasionally stopping to look behind to see if anyone was behind me, not a soul, in front only the rolling hills of the western maseta and rain clouds that were theatening but never really delivered like yesterday. When I arrived in the village the only other Pilgrims there were 3 Canadian women, for first people I saw for about 2 hours. It was a gift from Santiago. The Alburgue I´m in tonight is very quiet since not many have come this way, another nice gift, it´s nice not hearing the constance chatter of people talking and tonight maybe no snoring! There were only 6 people checked in when I arrived but a couple more have shown up.

If one believes in the term ¨the Camino provides¨ I did my bit yesterday. After walking for 4 hours in that rain and wind I finally arrived in a pueblo, I went into the local bar (main place of sustanance) and ran into one of my favorite people I´ve met so far! Mittu from Finland, she and a German girl was hanging out hoping the rain would subside, it wasn´t going to, finally they started to get ready and I saw that the only protection she had was a thin piece of plastic, I couldn´t let her go like that, out here we have to care for each other, so I gave her my rain poncho, I only had about 6 km to go yesterday and knew I could survive without it. I told her I would get it from her in Leon, but when I got there I bought a new one, they were only about 8 dollars, she and her friend made arrived at the Alburgue about 5 and she started to give it back but I told her it was hers.

Well enough for today, I´m downloading photos to Facebook for your enjoyment, I can hog the computer since there are 2 here and no one else has set down at the other

The Meseta

The meseta, ah the meseta, think about San Diego August and September weather with a little Santa Ana wind thrown in for good measure and you have the meseta. I´m in the Spanish farming area, nothing but fields as far as the eye can see, wheat and barley to be exact and not a tree for shade or sombra as we say on the Camino. I will be in this area for the next week or so, so it will be up early to get as many kilometers behind before the sun kicks in. We are averaging about 25 km a day, today we did 30 and tomorrow we will do a pinch over 29. The one good thing is there are no hills, but at this point when we see a hill it´s not like it was a week or so ago, then it was a bit of dread, now it´s just OK, it´s not that big. The temperature can be so different from day to day, 3 days ago in the tiny tiny village of San Juan de Ortega it got so cold in the evening, jackets were broke out and blankets used on top of sleeping bags. Burgos was a bit of a culture shock after the tiny villages, big city with big city noise, the Spanish culture is partying all night long, when we were heading out of the last bigger city of Lognoño last Sunday morning, the locals were calling it a night but sang for us ¨Peregriño, Peregriño, it was quite a sight, this morning the locals talked to us in their best inebriated spanish, we don´t know what they were saying but it was funny. I went to a Pilgrims mass in San Juan and afterward they serve Garlic soup, they have been doing that for 100´s of years so it was quite the treat to see that. The village we´re in tonight is truly a one horse town, really, it was outside the bar when we walked into town! It looks like something out of one of the old spagetti westerns that Clint Eastwood did in the 70´s, any moment I expect that classic ¨The Good, the Bad and the Ugly¨music to kick in. The computer I´m using is like being back in the mid 90´s slow, slow and then slow.

Often time in the morning I walk along thinking how blessed I am to do this, I know I´ve mentioned that before, it´s something I don´t want to forget.

This was my first day back on the Camino after a dia de descanso (day of rest) in the city of Burgos, it was as large as Pamplona but didn´t have the ambiance of the Ciudad of Corrida de los Toros. I took a break there for a couple of reason, first I´ve put over 300 kilometers behind me or about 180-190 miles in 2 weeks, but more importantly some of the people I´ve been walking with had to go home and back to reality. We had a group of 7 for a while, 4 Germans, Judith who left us last Monday had to go back to Munich and start her new job with the German Railway System, Sylvia had to get back to her children, Roland had to leave last night for his home near Munich for school that starts again on Monday, Ruggero our Italian Naval Officer pushed on up the Camino due to time constraints, Petr our Czech engineer stayed in the last village so he could visit some ruins along the way he couldn´t catch today. So now it´s down to me and Isabella, my German walking partner, I couldn´t ask for a better one. It was kind of sad for the group to break up last night but the real world calls some of us back.

I would post some photos but this computer couldn´t handle it so I will have to do that down the Camino in a few days. Hope all of you are doing well and I think of you when I´m walking along my Camino.
Buen Camino.