The night before last's albergue, Laganares, was heavenly. Reggae music played in the background while I FaceTimed with Elizabeth in the empty bar. We ended up in our own room because so few pilgrims stop there. Had lovely chats with three Swiss grandmothers - Marceline, Janick, and Erika. Their first language is French, but they also speak 4 other languages! Amazing. All ages walk the Camino and all at their own pace.
After a dinner of vegetable soup, fried fish, and flan, we slept wonderfully and heard no snoring. When we had our morning coffee, we heard on the TV news about the bombing at the Boston marathon. Headline news here too. I get the feeling Europeans are perplexed by all the random violence in the U.S. It IS perplexing and upsetting.
Most private albergues have wifi which is why I am able to lie in bed, type out these long blog entries on this phone, then post almost immediately. The municipal albergues are super basic and don't have wifi but they are cheaper (either 5 euros or donation).
There is just no predicting when we will find a kitchen but that is the first thing I look for. There haven't been any in days which means expensive and late menu meals and white bread for breakfast (shops are also quite hard to find).
Last night and tonight we hit the jackpot and Scott cooked great pasta, chorizo, and vegetable meals. The trick is to always buy food when we happen to see a market, but then we carry several extra pounds. Hard on the feet!
Oh man, I have some stories...
Yesterday we had the worst picnic lunch ever. A tin of squid its own ink. Way worse than cat food. We laughed and gagged, thinking of how to describe how horrible it tasted. Please skip these next sentences if you are easily offended. Scott said it was like eating a Kotex. I said it was like eating aged placenta in its own "ink." Scott said it tasted like snatch on a hot tin roof. The ink was so viscous and bitter that given the choice, we would have chosen road kill to eat. I don't even think the feral kitties all over Spain would be interested in it. See pics.
We ran into one our original Camino family members all the way from St. Jean, France. Bernt is a former jet fighter pilot from Germany and a Jesse Ventura look-alike. He has flown F-4 Phantom And MIG - 29 fighter jets and currently drives an 1800 cc Harley Davidson, sports a huge iron cross WWI tattoo on his upper arm, and owns a bar. You get the picture. I ask him if he has seen Cowboy lately. Yes, he was making meatballs and telling everyone he was a professional chef, a few days before at an albergue. Another American woman walked with him that day and came away with the same harrowing, somewhat unbelievable stories I had heard from him except with the added detail that he said he had apparently killed (accidentally?) someone in the woods last year.
So the next night Cowboy shows up again and Bernt couldn't sleep because he had a terrible feeling he was going to be killed and made into meatballs. Everyone seems afraid of him, even a hard-core military German dude. But as I said before, I believe we all have worth and the capacity for change, so let's see what happens.
I went into a pharmacy for more Vaseline (keeps blisters at bay on the toes) and more ibuprofen (our feet ache badly by the end of each day). Ibuprofen comes in 600 or 800 mg large capsules! I commented on this (all in Spanish of course) and the pharmacist said it's because Spaniards are more Brutish.
Funny!
Local folks are generally so kind to pilgrims. Shopkeepers always want to chat when they find out I know Spanish. And they always want to know my heritage. Yesterday I was told I look Arabic! Another shopkeeper in Hermanillos (little brothers - indeed the men here were generally 4 feet tall!) wanted Scott and me to taste all his meats and cheeses. Dried vaca (cow) thinly sliced is the specialty here.
Food procurement is certainly one of the most entertaining aspects of being here. Today a woman shopkeeper was concerned I was doing the Camino alone but I assured her my esposo was outside. She gave me a Coca-cola flavored lollipop for him, as if he was my child and I was at a bank drive-thru in the U.S.
Yesterday morning I screamed because I almost stepped on an impossibly skinny 20-feet long snake on the path. No, wait a second, it's a parade of moving caterpillars, moving nose to butt (not attached). What the?! (My bro, Chris's favorite exclamation). We pondered what they must be doing and thought of all sorts of metaphors for their behavior (and all sorts of other Camino occurrences - this is what happens when we get severely dehydrated). Well, turns out they are Pine Processionary Caterpillars, capable of decimating whole pine forests. That line of 300 or more caterpillars were siblings and on their way to find some moist dirt to pupate in! Good thing we didn't touch them because they have a nasty sting and can harm the eyes. Freaky! See pics.
Incidentally I saw the line of caterpillars as a metaphor for how we should not blindly follow what everyone else is doing (after all, the front caterpillar was very unsure of where to go). The super nice Baptist couple from NC later told me they saw the caterpillars as a metaphor for how much we need each other and should stick together. They are so positive and fun to be around.
We spent the last two days on the Calzada Romana, the longest stretch of "extant" (love that word) Roman road in Spain, built over 2000 years ago. It was a side route, so it was devoid of most towns, fountains, houses, or people. A very lonely and somewhat boring couple of days. So we entertained ourselves by planning a possible trip to Cinque Terra Italy after the Camino. Mark and Kristen, did you go there? Thanks Beth for recommending it!
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