Woodswoman Walking

NOTE:  I re-read my last post and wanted to state for the record that after I am a sweaty mess at the end of the day, I do take a shower before crashing in my bunk . . .

Saturday, September 14, 2013

A personally majestic day for some reason.  I am thinking today as I walk (yes, there is plenty of time to do that) about the first week of the Camino, which breaks you down (well, at least broke ME down), and about the second week when I started to feel stronger, to notice something other than the heat, my feet, the struggle to just make it through the day, etc.  and now entering the third week . . . well, at least today, I feel as though everything I’m encased in during my normal life just sort of fell away after a fashion.  I’m not sure that’s really the correct way to put it, but at this point, I can’t do any better. I also notice I’m becoming mush-buckety, which generally is Neil’s role in this relationship.  But he is on my mind a lot as I listen to old music from our early days.  At any rate, as he always says . . . I digress . . .

I leave my rest day in Santo Domingo de la Calzada both refreshed and listening to my feet groaning, “Oh, no . . . that again!”  I start at 8:45, even later than usual, so I don’t stop for my typical café con leche on the way out of town.  Today’s path runs adjacent to the N-120 at times, and often veers off onto track that connects four small villages between Santo Domingo and Belorado, the next decent-sized town 23 km. away.

The first village is 7.2 km from Sto. Domingo, so I will wait until then, crunching on a bit of croissant as I walk, accompanied by sips of water.  On the trail, I have two “find a bush” moments, which I hate.  The track is right next to a major road, so hiding is less successful on days like this, though at least the cars are going fast enough that they probably will think they are dreaming if they glance across to the little bushes . . .

On the road, I meet Louise from Scotland, and we talk for a few minutes as we walk.  Her pace is faster than mine, of course, and after we establish that we both love doing our solo camino journeys, she clicks on.

I reach Granon (I wish I knew how to put that little squiggle above the Spanish “n” . . . ) and it is fairly small.  An Alimentacion (sort of like an Alimentare in Italy), a small local grocery, with fruit, vegetables, meat, cheese, bread, just staples, nothing fancy, but it is the place to get nectarines, which I love.  So I purchase one for .33 Euro cents, and talk with the owner for a few minutes.  He has some grade-school children buzzing around, he speaks English, and offers to weigh my full pack (I’m wearing my boots) on his produce scale.  I am almost afraid to look.  11.7 kilos.  That’s about 25 lbs.  And remember that I already sent 3.6 kilos home.  So I was ridiculously overloaded and still am.  I give him my card, he says he will read what I have to say about the Camino, and I leave, making a “slow-beeline” to the bar down the street to get my much-awaited café con leche.

Louise is already there, as are several others trekkers.  Inside, I point to a bocadillo case and a half sandwich, toasted, mimicking a BLT, but it is ham, cheese, lettuce, tomato, and shredded crab.  Even has mayo on it!  That’s a first, and it is delicious not only with my café con leche, but with the fresh-squeezed orange juice the man hands me.  I watch the oranges topple one after another into his machine and now I have my hand around a tall glass of delicious juice.

After an unsuccessful attempt at the Albergue to unload a daypack full of things I won’t need for two days, I return to Alimentacion Piedad and speak again with the owner, Amadeo Vicente, who says he will be happy to make the arrangements to send the small pack (but with nearly six pounds of paraphernalia) to Villafranca Montes de Oca, where I plan to stay tomorrow evening.  This requires that I reach Villamayor de Rio (I realize there are many places called Villamayor fill-in-the-blank on this road) today, and I am 11.5 km from it.  It is 12:30.  Not a big deal, really, even with the pack, but it will require walking under a hot and cloudless sky for another three hours or more.

The path from Granon

Relieved, nourished, and equipped with my large but slightly lighter pack, I head out of Granon into the countryside again.  Immediately I am surrounded by fields of sunflowers, all partially dry now, all with their heads bowed down for acres and acres, like fields of nuns praying.  However, some of the sunflowers have smiling faces . . . and I don’t know whether the seeds have fallen out in that pattern or whether some charming locals want to greet the peregrinos in this peculiar, slightly eerie, but delightful way.  I will include photos when I can load them, but right now I am smiling broadly and bow to the large yellow- and brown-headed field inhabitants.

Sunflower faces #1

The music in my ears is a collection of old favorites, a playlist randomly chosen earlier today . . . Dan Fogelberg, Kenny Loggins, Pousette-Dart Band, Stevie Winwood.  Peter Gabriel, Steve Perry.  Familiar music and lyrics from decades ago, and I am singing, smiling, yelling into the sun that this is a spectacular day.  It is now that I envision this next stage, the stage of complete and essential decomposition inside me.  Tears that have been absent from my emotions for the past five years even threaten to erupt, for no apparent reason other than that all is free and floating in my tiny cube of space right now.  They still don’t show up, but they tease around my edges.  At this moment, I feel as though I could walk forever.  I could fly.

Sunflower faces #2

Sunflower faces #3

Part of me is still practical, out of necessity, and I stop frequently, drinking the water in my bottles, saying hello to those who pass me.  At the next village, Redecilla, I again assess my stamina on this sunny day that shows no promise of cloud cover.  My iPhone says the temperature is 72 degrees, though it feels hotter than that without respite from direct sun.  Recklessness will not get me to any destination in a healthy manner, so I call the albergue in Villamayor de Rio to make sure they will have a bed for me if I pursue my morning goal.  No answer.

After three rounds of no answer, I try the one place in the village next up the hill.  Viloria de la Rioja.  There is only one albergue in that village, and they do have a room.  I reserve it.  Worry about getting to Villafranca tomorrow . . . worry about it tomorrow.  I won’t make more than nine miles today, though my feet could have walked the larger distance easily.  But the sun, though lovely, becomes brutal in the later afternoon, and I know I repeat myself, but it is worth repeating.  There is absolutely no shade.  I’m old but I’m not crazy.

So another 3.5 km. and I am in Viloria de la Rioja, population 70 people.  The hostel is called Albergue Acacio and Orietta, Brazilian and Italian respectively.  I am grateful for my accidental re-routing.  Ten beds (I get an un-bunk bed!), lovely showers, an outside terrace and a communal dinner and breakfast (cost= a donation).   As I enter, I hear soothing music and smell incense.  There is a fire in the corner wood burning fireplace.  I’ve just dropped into the late sixties or early seventies, and the tranquility is so thick you could wrap yourself in it for the winter.  Hmm . . . maybe I’ll just stay and become a volunteer.

Brierly’s book says Acacio is a key figure in the Asociacion Jacobea, and he created the network association that has done so much to improve pilgrim facilities along the Camino. Paulo Coelho is a sort of godfather padrino to this place and his books are for sale in three languages in the reception area.

I get settled, take a shower, do my hand laundry and hang it up outside in the garden area.  Settle myself in to write this post.

I cannot tell you what it feels like to be here.  A young woman’s mouth is hopping around on a flute (Lisa P, where are you?), her boyfriend is strumming a guitar, laundry is flapping, cats are mewling, an orange bicycle named GLOBE TROTTER is parked in the bike rack in front of me.  Rosemary plants, lavender, and some sort of fruit tree (pear, I think) line the stone wall to my left.  A breeze helps the string of international flags flutter next door.  A young man in blue jeans sits on a green metal bench across the garden.

It is a surreal scene, but it is also real.  The incense wafts outside with the breeze.  I am in mini-heaven.  Soon I will go inside to see if I can do something useful before (or for) dinner.  For one night, this is my community.

I realize I have not been writing about the internal journey, just the external, physical and environmental one. The first week was sheer exertion, paying attention to my feet on the path, to my breath, to drinking enough water.   I am listening to books on my iPod.  Surprisingly, listening keeps me going but allows me to wander in and out a bit.  Part of my brain is tracking the story, and another part paying attention to the walk directly in front of me.  And yet another part is musing randomly, I think.

My mind has tried each day to figure out what will be best for the task ahead, the segment of the journey that will present itself to me this day.  Since that alone is not a daily walk in the park, I have learned some coping skills.  In the heat, stop every 15-20 minutes for a couple of sips of water.  Try to make that pit stop in any shade you can find.  On the very steep uphill, count twenty-five steps and then drink.  Then another twenty-five.  Make it thirty-five if you can.  When that becomes the standard fare, try for a count of fifty.  Then sixty.  Sometimes, I reach ninety before I have to stop.

On the downhill steepness, be grateful for every step you take without falling.  Be grateful for your hiking poles.  Friends who told me I could make do with one pole have not been on these slopes, certainly not with my klutz habit.  I have not fallen once, and I have ONLY the poles to thank for that.  Each day, I take perhaps two dozen steps that would have afforded me the opportunity to hurt myself seriously.  So I am extremely careful and always use the sticks, no matter the direction of the hill.

At times, I almost float, no matter the physical struggle.  When there is nothing else to be done, no road to help with hitching, no taxi, no Brazilian hikers to take my pack, I have only myself, and I certainly won’t lie down on some cobblestone path to sleep for the night.  Press on.

I notice something very unusual.  I am not thinking about the future.  Not about a week from now, not about whether I will have the time and energy to visit Portugal for a few days before returning home, not about the upcoming holidays, when my kids and Neil’s Lisa and her family will all be in Fort Collins.  Not about classes I might teach in the early months of 2014.  I am thinking about now, about finding a bed for the night at my appointed destination.  Perhaps a bit about how far I will go tomorrow, at what town I will stop tomorrow . . . how far I can make it, given the slopes up and down, before I think I can go no farther.

I don’t care about food until it is in front of me.  Making sure I get a few bites of something every couple of hours is crucial, so I carry a half banana, a small croissant from breakfast, and three bottles of water.  Some days, fountains are few and far between but precious.  The Pilgrim’s Meal in the evening is usually too much food for me, and rarely includes anything green.  Tasty for the most part, but I end up giving up before the postros, the dessert.

I watch people go past me, some in groups of three or four, some on bicycles (how in the world they negotiate these paths, I do not know), some solo.  The chatter is in French, Spanish, German, the English with British or NZ or OZ accents.  As we pass one another, the strings of “Buen Camino” echo around us.  That is a universal phrase.

The first week, I could barely pay attention to anything but how hard the walk was, almost all the time.  But after the second week is nearly past, I realize I’ve spent every day noticing the landscape as it shifts from woods to wheat to grape vines to wheat again.  Watching people and the size of their packs . . . I’m not the only one sending part of my belongings ahead, though I am not always doing that anymore.  I pass two young women with flip flops on, and day packs.  Two others with only flat rectangular passport cases on cords around their necks and shoulders.  Men with enormous packs on their backs, and those with only small ones, cruising along like this is flat track.

Many of us have hiking poles.  Occasionally someone has a lovely carved stick.  Often I see people (apparently with tremendous balance) just chugging along with nothing in their hands.  Hats of all sorts, Camelbacks, water bottles. Two Asian women with what look like speed skating leggings.  Makes me sweat just looking at them.  Skinny people, those with at least 50 lbs to lose and perhaps 30 on their backs . . . I admire every one of them, including myself!  And I’ve seen a sort of “Yost from Amsterdam” twice lately, but he needs to be taller.  Still, he had calves of steel and a huge gut, just like Yost.  I wonder if he’ll be buying a new suit at the end of his walk.  (For those of you who are out of the Yost loop, watch The Way and you’ll get it . . . my sister reminded me not to be too disappointed if I didn’t meet Yost along the way.  And I haven’t yet!).

I find I care not at all what I look like.  I see myself in storefront glass occasionally, this big busted oldish woman, zip-off shorts (I sent my other shorts home . . . these pockets are FABULOUS for all manner of essential items) and a huge pack, Tilly hat with a snap on one side (yes, Jeanne S, it looks like an Aussie Outback hat), and not enough vertical flesh and bone from the hips down to make me look like a normal person.  Think the Munchkins in The Wizard of Oz.

When I take off my hat at the end of the day, a flat, wet mess greets me in the mirror.  I shower and don’t even miss a blow-dryer at this point.  And though I’ve brought some simple blush and eyebrow pencil, I gave that up on about Day Five, after I left Pamploma.  Tumbling into bed in a shirt and capri pants, wrapped up in my zippered hoodie, hoping  to fall asleep sooner rather than later, has become the ritual of the evening.  And getting up every morning for the desayuno (breakfast) of cafe con leche and some form of bread always leaves me wishing for Neil’s garbage omlettes.

Some of the walkers cross paths often or stay in the same hostels for several nights in a row, especially since we’ve learned to have our “today” hostel owner call for tomorrow, if we can guess how far we might walk today.  The hostel reception areas are typically full of large packs with tags on them every morning, waiting for JacoTransport or Globetrotters Transport to pick the bags up, empty the 7 Euro out of each tag envelope, and deliver the packs to whatever town and albergue is on the tag.  A new version of “Pay it Forward”, I guess.  Most of those people (including myself) also have some sort of day pack to take with them along the route.  Then their bigger packs are waiting for them at their requested evening hostel, or somewhere nearby.  I still feel spartan, since some of these folks are going to hotels, not albergues, for half of their stays, or at least paying for private rooms in the hostels that offer one or two. Too expensive for this Woodswoman. And unnecessary, I think, for me.

The pack transport seems to be quite efficient and lucrative, and if I lived here (though I have no desire to live in Spain), I’d start a company exactly like this.  Everyone wins, at least almost every time.  I did get stuck paying double a few days ago, because I wanted my pack to go to two days ahead of me.  So they charged me twice the fee, even though I probably could have walked the two-day distance in one day if I had purchased that extra vertical section of legs I just spoke about.  Can’t complain, though.  It gets easier every day, at least so far.  But I see by my little guide books that there are a few stages up ahead that will be bears to deal with!

Today was really the first time I was aware of bird sounds as I left Ciruena at 8:10 a.m.  I have been acutely aware of the number of kittens just on the edges of the trails, especially through little towns.  Three or four or five kittens and their mother, often barely out of kitten stage herself, scurrying across our path, or climbing up to a stone wall to nearly say hello to these strange strangers . . . and the dogs seem to be quite used to all of us.  They stay where they are lying, for the most part.  Almost none of them barks at us.  And I refrain from petting any of them, but it sure does make me miss my Marley, Huxley and Zelda fur-creatures.

The hills are flatter, grapevines gone in place of what might have been wheat, one lone tree occasionally if we’re lucky, and just a few people on the trail ahead of me.  Either they left early and have gone past me, or the fact that I only walked about four miles to the next bigger town for my rest and errand day restricts the number of trekkers actually on my section of road this morning.

My iPod was FUBAR for a day, but has somehow fixed itself.  However, it gave me an opportunity to see how different my thoughts might be without earplugs in my ears.  Not much difference, but for the fact that the part of my brain that was paying attention to storyline got to take a nap.  Still lots of flickers, phrases, conscious breathing, stops for water, murmuring “Buen Camino” every time I sense someone coming up behind me.

Yesterday for awhile I walked with a Brazilian woman named Nubia . . . she has five weeks, and plans to spend a few days in Santiago, a day in Finisterre and two days somewhere in between, so she’s clocking 30-35 km per day.  I can’t imagine it.  Her 12-year old son is staying at home with a friend, and on weekends with her ex-husband.  We walked side by side for about an hour, stopping at a metal barrel set sideways on the side of the road next to huge haystacks.  A snack of banana, nectarine, juice and always more water, a bathroom break for her, and we were on the road again, but only for a bit, because her pace and her required KM total for the day had her moving much more quickly than I. Generally, I don’t even go that far with an one person.  I am a solo walker, as are many others, and we all, as I’ve been hearing, have our own Camino.

Those who walk with groups stop to talk and then say, “I’m with others, so I can’t get too far behind.”  That is exactly what I wanted to avoid, and I am very happy to be alone.  A little dinner chat at our Peregrino table in the albergues that feed us, and then off to bed.  I wait for the crazies to leave in the dark with their headlamps on, and then groan out of the bunk.  A new ritual for me, the night owl.

More later . . .

FIRST NOTE:  Thank you all so much for your comments on these posts.  I DO read them, but can’t reply to most of them, so mea culpa.  But I feel your warmth and interest with me.

My Camino Journal, handmade by Libby Rehm

Well, it’s not a short summary, but it will catch me up, at least for the most part.  Any insights will have to wait if they’re not here already.  Getting it down is the goal at the moment.  Scribbling in my journal (thanks again, Libby) and doing voice memos to myself as I walk . . . those will help pick up some pieces later!

Thursday, September 5, 2013  My day in Pamploma

One important thing I want to do on this day “off” is send some things home, to lighten just a bit this albatross I carry around or ship ahead.  I awake on and off during the early morning, listening to other pilgrims leave for their daily trek, and doze until 10:30 a.m., a complete luxury.  After a refreshing shower with absolutely no waiting line, I dress and pack up my sleeping bag, the larger Canon camera I insisted on bringing, and my trail-running shoes, which weren’t serving me as well on the Camino as they had in Australia’s outback, rainforest, and ocean shoreline.  Ah, well.

Arms full, I search for a taxi stand just outside the medieval walls, and  direct the driver to Mailboxes, etc., where I ship and insure my goods.  An expensive overextension of my packing, but who knew? The FedEx box will arrive in Fort Collins in less than a week, though I would have preferred to pay for a slow boat, but this is not an option here.  I could have sent the box by Spanish Correos (Post office), and it might never get home.  So 95 Euro for shipping and good insurance, with a tracking number!  What a great idea . . .

I wander the streets at a leisurely pace to get back to the old city, try for an internet that has a plug, a farce, I find. A story to be told at some point when everything else is REALLY boring.

Hotel and Cafe Iruna – Pamploma

Finally, since most of the plazas have free wifi for tourists, I head toward the Plaza de Castillo and a Sangria at Hotel/Café Iruna, Hemingway’s old hangout. And I try to post.  The camera is giving me problems.  Won’t take the photos into iPhoto, and it’s apparently iPhoto’s problem. (Eventually I will reset this, but it will not be the last of my electronic issues.  Maybe it’s the Camino’s way of telling me something . . . )

Papa in bronze, but startlingly lifelike!

I’ve been told in my reading, as well as by a sign just over my left shoulder, to go into the side bar of this hotel, where Papa Hemingway still stands, leaning against the massive slab of wood, turned in greeting toward anyone who enters.  I already know this statue will be posed at the bar, but it is eerie to enter and see him, half turned toward me, asking, “Well, what took you so long?”

The rest of the evening is uneventful.  I sit at an outdoor restaurant table, watching the crowds enjoy some live local music in the center of Plaza.  A fellow North American peregrino, Joan from British Columbia, asks whether I might join her for dinner and I do.  The three course menu advertised on the restaurant’s chalk board is apparently only for lunch, so I would walk away, but for my temporary companion.  So we have what I consider to be a mediocre and overpriced dinner, followed by a much more rewarding conversation with Neil from a Call Center.  Six cents per minute.  A cheap date, especially since my Bright Roam/Movistar sim card still doesn’t work, and I can get no response from Bright Roam.  Very disappointing, since I have had good experiences with them in the past.  But no more.

I walk back to my little Pension’s convent style room and organize myself for the morning’s walk out of Pamploma.

I say I am determined that I will be carrying this pack myself from now on, but for the trek to O’Cebreiro in Stage 26 (of 33) much later on.  Well, I will learn that whatever I’m determined to do . . . sometimes becomes instead very different from my plan.  But I am doing one thing I did determine to do.  I walk.

The trek continues . . .

Plaza del Castillo – Pamploma

Friday, September 6, 2013  Pamploma to Uterga . . . oops, to Obanos

Another beautiful day, with an absolutely hellish (and unexpected) up and downhill topography.  The Alto del Perdon (Hill of Forgiveness and boy, I have no idea what sin I committed that got me this punishment!) is the top of a mountain with a long iron-scape of pilgrims walking and on horseback.  If you saw the movie, The Way, you will remember it as the place where Yost asked Sara if he might look like one of these iron cut-outs when he finishes the walk.

Peregrino sculpture-scape on Alto del Perdon

Well, just know that the cast and crew did NOT walk up and down from Pamploma or Cizur Menor to get to that magnificent ironscape with the windmills in the background.  They drove up, I’m sure, just as did the man who was selling juice and water out of his cooler across the road from the scape. I thought the Pyrenees stage was tough!

Rather than go all the way to Puenta La Reina as John Brierly (have I said he seems to be the guru author of an excellent guidebook to the Camino?) lays out, I decide to go to Obanos . . . and then retract that after I plunge down the trail after the Forgiveness peak.   I settle on Uterga, the next town DOWN (another (!) in Brierly’s book) the mountain.  However, when I get there, I discover that the only albergue is full and the senorita unsympathetically offers me a room by myself for 50 Euro instead of a bed for 15 Euro.  I tell her I cannot afford that, and ask if there is a taxi to Obanos.  She says, “It’s only 4 km down the road,” and I nod but shake my head.  She calls the taxi.  “One half hour,” she says with no warmth in her voice.  This is the first time I have encountered the sullen indifference I feel from her.  I head for the WC and she says, “Clients only.  You will have to buy water.”

She needs to climb the Hill of Forgiveness.

The taxi arrives in 45 minutes (Spanish time) and drives me to Obanos, stops at the Albergue I request, and even goes inside to see whether there is room at the inn for me, before he helps me unload my backpack (the full Monty that day . . . ) and get settled in the place.  The taxi might be the best 15 Euro I have spent this week.  Like a “true Pilgrim” ala Jack from Ireland in The Way.

Dinner with SJPP bunkmate Kristy Jones (Vancouver) and a group of people she has gathered around her.  Canadian, American, Russian, Argentinian, British and more.  A table of eight for the Pilgrim’s Menu at a little bar whose waitress makes up for that cold fish woman in Uterga.

Today, only 15 km, but a bear of a day, between the heat and the terrain.

Saturday, September 7, 2013  Obanos to Lorca

From Obanos, I start fairly late, nearly 8:30 a.m. and wander to Puenta La Reina, the Bridge of the Queen. Since I haven’t had any breakfast, I stop and order a cup of tea and croissant, and arrange to send my big pack to Lorca, with the help of a lovely, English-speaking hotel receptionist who also calls ahead and makes sure of a reservation for me at La Bodega del Camino Albergue.  Puenta La Reina is today the site of a motorcycle gathering.  At least that’s what I remember . . .

The day’s walk is up and down as usual, but no (!) so I feel smugly capable of arriving at my destination without being half dead.  A fairly good dinner there, though I long for the salad that is the first course at the Albergue across the road.  But no matter.  Tomorrow.  This place even has a dryer, which I share with two women from England who are kind enough to offer.  When the hostel owner calls ahead again for my reservation the next night at a new Albergue in Villamayor de Monjardin, named appropriately Albergue Villamayor de Monjardin . . . I ask for three spaces, to include the dryer women.   And all is well.

Today’s distance, 16 km.

Sunday, September 8, 2013  Lorca to Villa Mayor de Monjardin

I completely lose track of the days of the week, let alone where I stayed last.  This writing will keep my memory intact, at least somewhat.  In the early hours before dawn we could hear the pouring rain, and for those who like to get up and leave the albergues by 5:30 or 6:00 a.m. (with headlamps, because it is still dark), the rain was part of their start this morning.  But by the time the sanest of us decide to begin the drizzle had stopped, and the cloud cover, was welcome.

Today’s walk was again not too strenuous, especially with only my daypack, though it has plenty in it.  About five or six pounds, I estimate, with the MacAir, all the cords, my pills, glasses case, and water, rain poncho, etc.  The essentials for the day.  I find that by mid-day I have to replace my hiking boots with the little mint-green Croc sandals I brought only (I thought) for the shower and night-time bathroom treks, but they are quite useful after lunchtime when my feet are already sore from the up and down. No blisters, though, and no toenails threatening to turn black.

Yea, 1000 Mile Fusion socks. Yea, U.K.  Yea, Amazon.

The monastery’s wine fountain . . . updated from medieval times, unfortunately . . .

The trail today goes through Irache, the “hype” stop . . . a monastery which not only makes wine, but has a wine fountain for pilgrims to taste their product.  I have heard about this place and initially envisioned an old stone fountain with the wine pouring slowly into our scallop shells (though the shell Ashley gave me is sewn to the outside of my pack, next to my back, like the reminder of my children’s heartbeats while I trek).   But instead, I approach the side of an old building with two stainless steel spigots, one for water and one for wine . . . is someone behind the scenes creating one from the other?  I doubt it.  I have a taste out of a plastic mini-cup provided, but actually it isn’t very great wine after all, quel surprise, and the last thing I need before my trek up the mountain to my bed is a full glass of wine.  Again, imagine me, drunk this time, face down again with pack on top of me, though it wouldn’t squash me since I’m just carrying a day pack today.

Arriving at the new Albergue Villamayor de Monjardin is a real treat.  Two brothers, new owners of this place that has been open only six months, and they have thought of almost everything.  Each bed has an electrical outlet next to it so charging the computer or phone or whatever is no problem.  A kitchen for those who want to make their own dinner.  Large cubby compartments for one’s belongings, and blankets in them!  My dryer-women friends had arrived long before I did, and only very high top bunks were available by the time I got there.  The top bunks are high because the brothers were considerate enough to make sure there was space for the occupants of the lower bunks to have adequate head room to actually sit up in bed, a very novel circumstance for bunk-inhabitants.  Good for the bottom-feeders, but for this short little runt, climbing down from a great height in the night for a pee or two fills me with a slight dread.

The blond dryer-woman is on the bottom bunk of my set, and kindly offers to switch with me.  She is tall (and younger, perhaps not so many pee breaks in the night), says she doesn’t mind at all, and for that I am grateful.  We seem to be paying one another back for our alternate favors.

Larry from Denver and Joan from Victoria are staying in “my” room, and I’ve seen them a few times in the past days.  I’m sure we will jump-hop one another here and there as we go along.  I’m doing that with the Canberra women, as well as several others who recognize me by my hat, but whose names I forget about five minutes after I learn them.

I am able to GoogleVoice both Neil and Ashley, and also talk with Mike, my ex-husband, who is recovering from treatment for tongue cancer, so it is a good evening all around.  If you walk the Camino, try to stay here . . . it is an exceptional, well-thought-out value for 15 Euro.  Again, the owners call ahead to reserve a place for me in Torres del Rio (also referenced in The Way).

Today’s distance 20 km.

NOTE:  I will add the categories and tags tomorrow, when I have most of a day off in Santo Domingo de la Caldazo.  Perhaps get another post finished by then as well.  Until then, I’m in the Bar Jacobeo in Ciruena, one of the strangest two-part little burgs I have ever seen.  More on that later.