Camino Day Twenty One

Monday, June 11, 2012

Astorga to Foncebadon

26.9 km (16 3/4 miles)

Morning photo in Astorga

The way goes past this store. At the bottom of the window sign it says "Buen Camino!"

Many pilgrims stopped here to get some hot food for breakfast.

 I am not sure it is visible in the photo, but there is a rainbow in that gray sky in the center of the photo.

From my journal: We walked in the rain today, more rain than we have seen so far. It was cold, too. 

Today we saw at least three rainbows. It was so great. Interesting too, b/c the posts with the shells on them also have rainbows painted on them.

lavender plants (I think, correct me if I'm wrong)

You can see a stork's nest in the steeple here. We saw tons of these nests, perched high above us, and often on relatively small platforms.

Some blue sky on a rainy day

Dinner at the parochial albergue. See that HUGE pot of spaghetti on the right?! 

The guy on the left is from Costa Rica and the young lady is our friend Erle, a Norwegian student who is traveling all over the world during her gap year.

One big happy family, eating dinner together!

From my journal: Just 9 more days until we reach Santiago, 9 days until my b-day. We have been in Spain 3 weeks now, I think. Crazy! It seems like its been forever. 

We have had dinner and everyone is settling in. Adam went to watch the [football] game with Erle. Dinner was amazing, and they offered a couple of vegetarian options for me (salad sin atun!). I am in a bit of an odd mood--there are 2 older ladies here who I feel don't like me. But one of the women from Greenland just gave me some cookies--it all works out, I guess :) 

The mother and daughter from Greenland were tense, as their items had bedbugs, and the girl lost something (I can't remember what, but they found it). They were still cordial with us and eventually worked things out between them, but the tension between them made it a bit awkward. The comment about the ladies who did not like me was in reference to these ladies who are probably in their 60's or 70's. When Adam and I were helping prepare the meal, one of them made a comment in Spanish about my lack of vegetable-cutting skills. It felt like we were teenagers and they were just trying to get under my skin. Later, they were washing dishes and I was trying to help, but I think I was splashing water all over the place, and they took the dishwashing back from me. Adam had his own issues with them the next morning.

It was at this albergue that we met a French guy who was running the trail and was planning to travel back to get married in France after his camino. His fiancee is American, and they live in California. We also got to know a Spanish lady (in the blue, behind Adam in that picture just above) who was walking with the lady in red (I think). We talked about reaching the Cruz de Ferro (iron cross) the next morning and the stones we carried with us to leave there (Adam's was from his med school campus). The Spanish lady said, "You are supposed to bring a rock that is equal to the burdens you bear in this world. Bigger rock means bigger burdens. Me? I don't have burdens. So I will pick up a rock here tomorrow to leave at the Cruz de Ferro." 

This albergue is located in the mountains, and we were very cold there, as we had hiked in the rain. This was one of our coldest nights. I think many of our bunkmates tossed and turned and didn't get quality sleep.