Day 24

The forecast for today was for rain, but it came early and by walking time at 8:30 there was scarcely a light mist in the air. Starting out from our little pension, which we had almost missed the night before, there was a nice view of the church at Burre, and it almost seemed to be growing out of the ever-present field of corn.

The walk the previous day at taken us to Calzada, as we missed the cutoff for our pension. I had thought that there must have been a missing sign, but I discovered that wasn't the case at all. I had thought that the Camino passed south of the hostel by about 500 meters, but come to find out, the Camino passed north of the hostel. So I had looked in vain for a sign pointing to the right, when in fact the had passed the sign pointing to the left. 

It gave me pause to think about the filters and assumptions with which we see the world. It is difficult having to always be right, especially when you learn that you are not! I saw this handwritten scrawl inside a cafe on the walk today and it was one of the few handwritten messages I have seen that actually have had any meaning.

For some reason the story of Mary and Martha came to mind on the walk this morning. In Martha's mind, she was doing the right thing. She was making all of the necessary arrangements for the visit of Jeaus, working hard at doing everything that needed to be done. But when she became irritated with Mary, who was simply enjoying Jesus' presence and asked Jesus to intervene, he replied, "Martha, Martha, you are worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed—or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”

The world goes by so quickly--cars flying down the highway, a thousand things on the calendar, so many things needing to be done! But only one thing is really needed, and that is to sit at the feet of Jesus and worship! We really ought to exorcise hurry and worry from our lives and take time to sit still! 

So at length I was back in front of the little roadside cafe in which we had sought refuge from the rain of the day before. The road beckoned, and it promised to be a nice day!

The sun hadn't come out yet, and the trees hanging over the way frequently gave it the appearance of being a tunnel. In some places, the trail dipped below ground level, and I wondered if the passing of feet for a thousand years had caused the trail to wear so deeply.

Before long we had arrived in Sarcedella, and it was immediately after that point that one encounters the memorial to Guillermo Watt, who died on the spot at 69 years of age. There's a plaque and his shoes have even been bronzed and placed there, and there has been no shortage of comments on how sad it was to be only one day before the arrival in Santiago that the pilgrim took his final breath!

Didn't meet very many people today, but the ones we did were most interesting, as usual! An older gentleman came alongside me at just about the Watt memorial and I guessed he would have been about Guillermo's age or slightly older. We didn't talk long and I'm not sure of his nationality, but I think he was German. He told me he had started in Le Puy, France, another popular starting point for the French Camino, except that it makes the trail a thousand miles long, just about doubling its length! The gentleman told me he had been walking for over two months and now was just a day away from his journey's end. He seemed energized at the thought and continued on past me!

As I approached an intersection, I met a couple coming towards me walking their three dogs. Not knowing what language they spoke, I used sign language to ask if I could take their picture and they replied in perfectly beautiful British English! After snapping their photo, they asked me if I had seen the pilgrims behind me in wheel chairs. I confessed that I had not and wondered how easy that would be to do. It was hard enough on foot! 

They told me they had moved from England to the south of Spain a number of years ago to run a restaurant in Dénia, but it was just too hot for them there. So they moved up to the Galicia region of Spain, where they said it rained as much here as it did in England! They told me they ran a pension in Brea and I told them I was sorry I wasn't stopping there, they were so pleasant. I must have missed one of their dogs in the photo!

The dog in the right of the photo reminded me a little of our Little Bit, with its scruffy hair going everywhere. The one in the left reminded me of me a bit, as it was limping some in its left leg! Mine is doing better today, as we had bought some naproxen sodium at one of the farmácias and we noticed it is quite a bit stronger than what we buy at home.

After I left this pleasant couple with their entourage of mutts, I came to a sign for their lodging, and I noted it was in English. If you are ever in Brea, you would enjoy staying here, and it reminded me of a certain movie!

And finally, I rain into a young Irish lad named Collom, with whom I enjoyed visiting a couple of times during the day. He had passed me once and we had simply greeted, but he stopped at a roadside stand to buy fruit. He must have been almost 6'4" and he had a long stride, making walking easier for him.

We met again a couple of times over the day's route, and he told me he was headed to Santiago, and then home. He had been teaching English in Spain for the past 11 months and seemed anxious to complete his walk and board his plane for Ireland. Friday night he had taken ill and had been vomiting, then when he woke up Saturday he told me he had been "vomiting out the other end"! The fruit he had bought that morning was the first real food he had eaten and he was anxious to keep it down!

He was a wealth of knowledge, and helped us prepare a bit for our approach to Santiago. He told me that the lines to the Cathedral were quite long, owing to the fact that they would not allow pilgrims to bring in their backpacks to the church and they had to be checked in to a holding area first. Also, the pilgrim office where you receive your compostela has long lines, so prepare to wait, he warned.

Collum was heading on up the road another 10 kilometers to where he had a lodging reserved, but as I drew near the tourism office in O Pedrouzo, I ran into him again and we walked the last two kilometers into town.  There was a sign pointing out the Pension Pedrouzo, where Sharon and I had a reservation, but there were two arrows--one by following the Camino, the other by following the city street. I stuck with Collom and we continued on the Camino, but it headed up a hill and into another eucalyptus forest, and I hoped I was not going to repeat my misadventure of the day before and have to go back a mile or so.

 

But eventually the trail cut back hard to the left and before you knew it, we were in downtown Pedrouzo! 

"I didn't give you my hand a while ago," Collom said as we prepared to part ways, and he extended his hand, "but we'll say goodbye for now and maybe we will meet again!" I hoped that we would, as he was a very nice young man and I had very much enjoyed visiting with him.

Our room in the pension was very pleasant, with two large single beds pushed together to make a double, a modern bathroom complete with stall shower, and a gorgeous view out the back window:

We found a small bar/cafe just down from our pension, and they had a nice dining room so we walked in about 1:15 p.m.  It was still early and we were the first diners, but it soon began to fill up.  I had the same pork dish I had ordered two days ago, and we laughed at the fact that we had to stop and think when and where it was that we had eaten that! We branched out a little for lunch, and perhaps remembering Jost, Sharon ordered the cordero, or lamb. It was delicious!

Following lunch and the obligatory two-hour nap, we felt refreshed enough to venture out into the town, so we walked the 300 meters around to the church. We concluded that the church youth group had walked to Pedrouzo and dozens and dozens of teenagers in blue tee shirts were making their way towards the building for the 7 o'clock mass.  We had gotten there about 6:30, but weren't interested in waiting for mass to start, but did take a few photos.

As we entered the church, there was a sign posted in three languages that encouraged us greatly. Here's the English version:

We wandered back towards our pension and found a small cafe where we could order a couple of sandwiches and an order of French fries. The sandwiches were huge and we were almost embarrassed at how much we left. 

Following our dinner, we walked back to our pension and went down to the office to inquire about shipping our backpacks. We had thought about breaking the remainder of the trip into two days, but 11 miles seemed so close, we felt ready to walk on in to town tomorrow. At long last, we will be in Santiago, God willing, by this time tomorrow!

It's a rather long walk, and we skirt around the city's airport and up an incline before coming in to Santiago, a city of 90,000 and the largest in this part of Spain. We are filled with hope and expectation, anticipation and some apprehension. What will it be like? What will we do afterwards? What will we be afterwards?

We shall find out tomorrow!