So we passed through a town this morning called San Anton where in medieval times monks treated Ergotism or St. Anthony's Fire which caused gangrene, hallucinations, convulsions, itching, nausea, vomiting, etc. At first these symptoms and behaviors were attributed to some sort of spiritual occurrence but get this- it was caused by a fungus in Rye which they made their bread with and because Spain didn't use this grain, pilgrims were often miraculously healed when they went on the Camino. The monks also performed amputations and then the pilgrims would make wood or wax carvings of their lost limbs and leave these at the cathedral in order to get some sort of heavenly intervention. Weird history or what? See first pic.
Well now we have a new camino family. Some nice baptist folks from North Carolina, a couple from Wyoming who know some mutual people on the ice, some women from Australia who have done the camino before (so far they seem irritated with us), some super nice folks from Malaga, Spain who I walked with all morning and chatted in Spanish (they speak no English). Nieves (snow in Spanish), Paco, and Ramon. They are paramedics and firefighters (bomberos). I love what Nieves said about the two men: they are crazy goats! (Cabras locos).
We are in an albergues with a large funky garden/yard in view of the stork nests on top of the town cathedral. The clacking sounds they make are like someone sucking a straw on a nearly finished vanilla frappe. Scott says they sound prehistoric.
Still on the meseta which means expansive views and long straightaways. Much warmer today and little black flies have hatched.
No kitchen here so we just ate with about 40 others pilgrims (lentil soup, salad, beef stew, and yogurt). So loud with all the languages! But also fun. I spent the meal translating into Spanish for an older man at the end of the table. Ha, I am told almost every day that I look Spanish by españoles but tonight the man of the house said I seem like a Spanish woman because I am serious and strong (domineering is what I think he meant). Oh dear.
1 comment:
Mommy! It's so fun to read all of these entries - good job keeping up on it! We just looked through all of the latest ones (I had fallen behind because of a certain computer death) and now we want to make tapas for dinner. So many interesting details! We want to be there with you so bad! Love you!!!
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