Snowing in Foncebadon

Emily and I decided to make a run for it today from Astorga.  Who is this Emily, you may ask.  A British painter of dogs, 33, cute as a button, and rather sassy for a Capricorn.  Actually, we keep meeting in the most random of spots, today we reconnected in a small town outside of Astorga at the most magical organic cafe run by the incarnated woman from Chocolate, named Pilar.  El LLar to be exact.  I was coming out of the loo after snorting down a cup of chocolate soup and she was just coming in.  Kismet again, clearly.

Needless to say, we made an attempt on Foncebadon to find it snowing and 4 degrees...AFTER ploughing through rain and wind so fierce it literally blew the raincoat right off my backpack. Never saw that one again. I wonder if REI will replace things that the wind has stolen...







The Taberna de Gaia took the edge right off though, after an earthen jug full of vino tinto and a roof tile turned serving tray full of jamon, queso, acietunas, and pan...photos are impossible right now since the spanish computers do not feel inclined to accept my American technology.


You´ll have to use your imagination to paint a medieval cafe, comoplete with candelabra thick with fountains of dried wax and servers in leather tunics.  And animal skins on the walls. Muy autentico, as they say.

Tomorrow, we´re going to make a go for 54 kilmometers, or 33 miles for those less metrically inclined. We want to test ourselves for one day and see if we can hack what the peregrinos of old did in a typical day.

Pray for us wanderers in our day of foot folly.  May our toes stay strong and our resolve sensible should our shins rebel.

Camino.

El Viento

No one mentions the wind. 

Perhaps it is because after days and days of leaning into head winds that bend a body in half, it starts to feel normal.  Perhaps it is because we begin to look at the grass and wonder, "How does this thrive here. 

What is the secret."  Perhaps it is because the meseta is longer than eyes can see and the mind forgets to mention the constant presence of the voice howling around us...

Just a small pueblo in Castille

Here is my Danish Ulrik and his miniature guitar. He was quite borracho and so I lead him to the highest point of Santo Domingo and we sang loads of songs at the top of our lungs.

Life just doesn´t get much better.

Santo Domingo y Denemarca

I broke down last night in Najara y tomer un Tylenol PM so I could sleep.

My brain is biking towards bilingual more each day and I´ve no mind to try and reign it in. For this, you all have my acknowledgement that yes, I do in fact realize that you may be understanding less than 100% of what I am writing.

Ulrik cut off all the heads and tails of the tiny sardines on our ensaladas kiens last night. I am up to four beers now that he owes me for pronouncing certain Danish words correctly. He is more generous than I am capable with all those fascinating inner vowel sounds. My tongue gets tied up in knots like an errant puppy, but he says that sometimes, my Danish is quite sweet and old, like from the 1930´s. This always makes me pleased.

There is no barro on el camino hoy, pero hay mucho viento que blows and blows and blows until we are all tired and wild and completely out of our heads. The Danish man Nilhs is 62 and is carrying all of his medical equipment with him so he can use his inhaler for cystic fibrosis that he has had his whole life. He is walking 500 miles with 30 pounds of medicine on his back with a disease that kills most people by the time they are 35.

In Santo Domingo, they revere chickens because of a local legend about a young man being seducded by an innkeepers daughter on his way to Santiago with his parents. He refused her advances, she planted silver on his person, he was convicted and hung and his parents continued on. Tragedy. And then, MILAGRO!!!

They return to find him still alive. How. Who cares! He´s still swinging though, so they run to the sheriff and say, ´Hey, cut down our boy´. The sheriff, eating his chicken dinner says, ´No dice people. The only way your son is alive is if these dead chickens get up off my plate and cock a doodle do!´

Imagine what happens next.
This is why, in Santo Domingo, they have chickens at the iglesia and actually, right here in the albergue courtyard.

Viva the highly unlikely and glorious!

A little piece flies away

Heart is a funny conglomeration of people and memories and adventures each day on the Camino. Today we put Ima on the train back to Tortosa...she had to leave a day early because her uncle passed away last night after a year of trying to get his heart transplant to take.

I learned this in a mixture of Catalan and Spanish, through tears and eyes, without ever speaking a word in my first language. This is the magic of the Camino...that you don´t need to be fluent in 3 languages to be able to speak the truth of the spirit. I miss her already.

Ulrik and I will be travelling on together tomorrow after putting David, Alessia, and Eduardo on their seperate ways back to Catalunia and Italy. We jokingly spoke about going through our ´coming of age´ experience of feeling death and separation from family but it is real now. We have a going away and greeting song that Ulrik played the first day we found him in Zubiri and already the Camino is bittersweet in body and solidarity. I am so grateful for the recognition and discovery of our little familia.

In just one week we have gone from strangers to people who have stamped themselves on each others hearts. Buen Camino mis corazons. Vos Vere hasta pronto.

I am so lucky. So very blessed.

Oh the pain

And the boxes of puppies.

Seriously, the beauty and the discomfort are completely unparalleled in my life up to this point.

Hanna, my Danish companion of the morning, told me that the Camino is divided into three parts. The first is called the Way of Death. I can vouch for that. Eduardo, my Italian friend and sports physician says that I have tendonitis in my right foot. Whatever it is, it makes each step on the downhill and level plain feel like a weightlifter is crushing my foot.

And then, I see fields of Basque horses, their neck bells jangling merrily, their whinnies climbing the breeze like eagles soaring on updrafts. It´s all so stimulating.

Now, tonight in Pamplona, after a day of speaking Spanish, Italian, Danish, and English, and drinking and eating our way through vino tinto and pinchos galore, I return to the Albergue, Jesus and Maria, which is in an old 17th century Jesuit church. They have made sleeping areas for us in the nave and we literally will dream in the boat to the heavens tonite.

Who can feel their feet when the spirit is soaring aloft.