Camino Day 26, June 30: Villafranca to O'Cebiero
Today's numbers: 17.1 miles per Garmin GPS. And, 42,094 steps, 225 floors, and 354 active minutes per Fitbit.
First of all, the internet connection here is zilch in our room, and tepid at best in the "bar" downstairs, so pictures are out for today. Too bad since we climbed 2,200 feet (almost all in the last five miles) to 4,000 feet with some great views. Hopefully, we will be able to upload them tomorrow or in a few days. Tomorrow is also an iffy day...another very small town with another hotel booked outside of booking,com (today was another, the second of three). So, if you don't see a post tomorrow, don't worry. I'm sure we made it to our next stop.
After today, if things go right, we have seven days to Santiago! Aches and Pains are gone for now, or at least in hibernation. Can't get cocky though...tomorrow is a downhill day, and, as Brierley so often points out, most injuries occur on downhills. Yesterday, we met a woman from Ireland who has been walking for two and a half months, both in Southern Spain and the northern route (another Camino variation). She had been basically injury and almost blister-free until three days ago when things went to hell in a hand basket. I know she'll get to Santiago (she's under no time table), but her feet and other parts started having problems - basically out of nowhere - according to her. So, it's one foot in front of another, and always watch your step!
Dave's voice
A good day, though with a heavy climb at the end when the heat was max. We started off by ignoring the recommended first hill and took a shaded route along the highway. Shameful as this was, we had lots of company. Our intrepid fellow Caminars are opting more and more for "practical" I.e., easy, ways of traveling rather than the slightly holier-than-thou recommendations in the travel guide. Not that the guide doesn’t contain tons of good info, but… Okay, walking through vineyards is nice, not spectacular. Grubbing up steep and rock-strewn paths is arduous, not exhilarating. Collapsing into exhausted sleep in a baking room is draining, not spiritually rewarding. The list goes on.
In passing through a string of tiny towns today, we finally leave Castille-Leon and enter Galicia, noted for its Celtic influences and for the way everyone local talks like Sylvester the cat. "Thay, thenior, wherth the Camino around here?" They do the thame, uh, same in Barthelona. Heard some local music, nice Spanish tunes with Irish flavors – or is it the other way around? Good either way.
Old Sombrero, the town we’re over-nighting in, is the usual old stone streets, a few undistinguished restaurants and a population of 50 sort of place that we’ve gotten used to. We’re at about 4,000 feet so some nice views of low-mountain countryside. More grazing than growing here. Our pleasant room has a 12 inch Zenith TV hidden in the rafters and windows to let in the stifling heat. No cool breezes yet, but we have hopes they’ll roll in by midnight.
Did I mention that there’s a bar downstairs? Even at 4:30 PM, locals are gathered down there babbling on about whatever people talk about in small towns. And they’re under our one and only large window, the one that faces the setting sun. Ah, Spain.
We met two new people today, a young Japanese woman who travels with a kerchief over her face a good part of the time like she’s about to commit a convenience store robbery, and her new friend, a handsome young guy from Monterey, Mexico, who’s bright-eyed, smart, and friendly and seems delighted to have a shot at international relations. Don’t know if his new friend has the same agenda or not. She tells us there’s a Camino in Japan. "It’s not big," she says and gives Scout a link. It’s what we do now and that’s okay. Rather than exchanging contact information with someone you’ll never see or hear from again, link them to something that might be of interest.
We also spoke briefly with four American Catholic kids from Virginia and New York. Two women, two men. We’re guessing none of them was looking for international relations. Friendly. The interesting thing was that the chattier one of them said three of them were In a priest’s program at Catholic University in Washington D.C. That would seem to make one of the future priests a woman. Gee, only 2,000 years later and, if I read correctly, with no reference in the bible anywhere to who should or should not be a priest.
We’re a bit over 400 miles into the trek and starting to have conversations about how much stuff we’re going to throw away when we get home. Hey, who needs more than two pair of skivvies? We have a "minimalist" runner pal who, when he travels, rents clothes from local homeless people. For $.50 a day, this guy can go casual – and have different fashion looks - all the time. Anything he has to bring from home, he wraps in a kerchief and carries on a stick. I, on the other hand, have a dozen heavyish shirts from Oregon I try to wear at least twice each during the San Diego winter just to keep them in the rotation. There are coats I haven’t worn in a decade. Three piece suits… Okay, no need to say how long they’ve been resting. Maybe I should give this stuff (Some? Most? All?) to charity in hopes of one day seeing it on our minimalist pal’s back.
The things we might not throw away are our Hoka shoes. These are running shoes made with wads of used chewing gum inside the soles to change the way the wearer gets injured. Mine had over 350 miles of walking wear (no running) before the trek began. They’re nearing 750 miles now and still look and feel okay. Scout wants us both to contact Hoka after we hit Santiago to see about some sort of endorsement deal. Cha-Ching! (A fellow Caminar made it almost 400 miles in Sketchers before the side blew out. We encouraged her to patch them up with duct tape and to contact Sketchers about an endorsement deal.)
A week to go. No injuries. No major fights (though it would be very, very nice if someone walked faster when I want to walk faster) and, thus far, no idea how much this is costing us. Ignorance is good.
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