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