Day 25

What do you say about a 25-day dream of a lifetime finally realized? How do you sum up the final walk of our Camino de Santiago? Impossible to do!

It is enough to say that we did it, and while we had planned to wait until Tuesday to go to the Cathedral and the Pilgrim Office, after resting up a bit yesterday, we did walk down that direction and found the lines weren't really too bad. After a fairly short wait, we each took our turn going in, showing our pilgrim passports and when we came out, we were the proud bearers of our Compostelas!

We totalled it up and found that over the last three weeks, we had walked 224 kilometers, or just over 140 miles. Part of it we did while wearing our backpacks, some in the heat of the day, and some in a pouring rain. Along the way we had met some wonderful people and discovered a fellowship of travelling sufferers with whom we would always be kin! We had walked the last 110 kilometers from Sarria, which qualified us to receive the coveted Compostela. Imagine our surprise when we looked at it and discovered that the entire document was all, even our names, in Latin, just as it has been for nearly a thousand years!

Our pilgrim credentials had been folded and refolded, stamped and dated and both the front and nearly all of the back side were nearly full. The young American volunteer working behind the counter took all my information, had me sign the register attesting that we were walking for religious purposes, and I seriously thought I would break down and cry when he said, "I will now stamp your final sello!"

He lifted the stamp, applied it to my document and dated it 07 Xull 2014. It read "Oficina del Peregrina S.A.M.I. Cathedral, Santiago." It was over! The quest had ended! Our pilgrim passports now looked like this:

We were bone tired, had no energy left and on top of that both of us were suffering with various maladies of one kind or another, but we were still so happy!

What an eventul day it had been! We had made it all the way to O Pedrouzo the night before and when we looked at the map and realized we were only 11 miles away, we decided to go for it. The last day isn't one of the prettiest, as you hike in to town, have to skirt the airport and then face miles of urban agglomeration and traffic.

But we were up and at 'em early and on the road by 7 a.m. That would be the equivalent of 5 a.m. our time as everything seems to happen two hours later here. There wasn't even a coffee shop open for breakfast, so we started on out of town hoping it wouldn't be far before we could have breakfast.

We had barely left town when we heard footsteps, and who should it be but my friend Collum from Ireland! His long legs were moving along at a good pace, but he slowed down and walked with us a bit and we enjoyed catching up on his travels. But shortly he said it was time to move on, as he wanted to make the Pilgrim Mass in the Cathedral by 12 noon.  We knew we couldn't make that, so we bade him farewell and Godspeed and he was off. 

It was shortly before 8 a.m. and we were hoping we would soon find a coffee shop. Sure enough, we walked in to the little town of Amenal where the first coffee shop open was doing a bustling business. We happened to mark our arrival time pretty accurately, because there was a large-screen TV turned on at the end of the room and most folks were watching it. There was an on-screen countdown clicking down the minutes until 8 a.m., at which time they would release the bulls in Pamplona! We were awestruck! Only about three weeks earlier we had been in Pamplona, had talked with a taxi driver who had run with the bulls and knew that someday his sons would run too. And it was about to begin!

At precisely 8 a.m., with the streets lined with people, a gentleman lit the fuse on a rocket, launching it skyward and pulling the release on the double gates that would free what looked like close to a dozen ferocious bulls onto the streets of this town that were literally jam packed with runners in red and white, and every balcony and observation post full. What a sight to see!

It was over in about two minutes time, with not too much trampling and goring that we saw. Just glad we were watching it from where we were, seated safely enjoying our breakfast!

Soon we were off again, and we knew we had a couple of steep climbs ahead of us, one going towards the Santiago airport, the other as you approach the edge of town with its 380 meter peak of Monte Gozo, where you would get your first view of Santiago.

We paralleled the airport a while, then finally rounded the eastern end of it, with its landing lights and navigation equipment. An old buddy of mine was waiting there for me to take his picture!

Trudging on past the airport, we came upon an unusual couple having a conversation in English, the second language for both of them. One was a young German girl, the other an older Hispanic man.

When we asked the gentleman where he was from, he said "Guatemala". We said, "You are kidding, we were in Guatemala last year!"

It is a small world, and it was about to get smaller! 

"What part of Guatemala were you in," he asked us. "Chimaltenanga," we replied.

"You are kidding me! I was the mayor of Chimaltenanga!" he told us. It had been quite some time ago, and he had been the youngest mayor ever elected to that city. He had even written a book about his experiences!

We told him where we had stayed, what kind of work we did, and he seemed impressed. He asked me what I do, and it has just always been easier for me to tell people, "I teach the Bible" rather than try to explain to them what a minister of education is!

"I have read the Bible through eight times," he told me, "and I always have trouble. There are so many inconsistencies that I find."

I asked him to name one, knowing what a challenge that could be. It was simpler than I thought, but still required some explanation. The story of Adam and Eve, of Cain killing Able and then Cain leaving home and finding a wife. If Adam and Eve were the first two human beings, and they had three boys, where did Cain get a wife?

How would you answer that? We talked a while and I told him I had my email address on a card and we pulled out two to hand them, both with the website gotquestions.org prominently displayed. The young lady glanced at her card and then threw it on the ground, but he kept his. 

We parted company after a while and continued walking, making it to Villamaior, which we had estimated to be the halfway point, and then a bit further along we came to the television tower at 390 meters, our highest point for the day.

We stopped at a little campground, and I was amused to see that the tents were placed out on the grass with quite a few chickens pecking all around them. I imagined that you didn't go barefoot in the campsite!

We stopped for quite a long rest and met an American family from Washington state that we had seen earlier, and visited a bit. 

 

I was beginning to move very slowly, and my left hip was bothering me quite a bit. We took frequent rest stops, and I was hoping we would soon be there, but I remembered how the last couple of miles were always the worst!

As we finally came to the place where we could see Monte Gozo, the hill overlooking Santiago, I told Sharon, "There would have to be a whole lot of Gozo for me to want to walk up that hill just to get a glimpse of this town!

We did come to Monte Gozo, and there was a little makeshift coffee shop set up by the chapel there, and a man turning coins into jewelry with a coping saw. We took a peek in the little chapel and it was very quaint:

Finally, after we had rested long enough, I had to walk up to the top of Monte Gozo.  You know me and getting the picture made!  Here was the monument that sits high atop lofty Monte Gozo:

And while you couldn't see the cathedral from up there owing to some trees that had sprung up, you did get a glimpse of the fabled city. I wondered what the pilgrims who made the journey 900 years ago thought when they first saw this view, and I was somewhat awestruck that people like me had been taking in this view for nearly ten centuries!

I had decided that this was just as far as I could walk, my leg wouldn't let me go one step further. I asked the young lady at the coffee shop if she would call me a cab, and she pointed to a phone number posted on the wall. My phone doesn't work here, I said. She said something I didn't catch, and then tried to make the call.  No answer, she said. I envisioned a nice plaque to my memory erected right here at this spot, like the one to Guillermo Watt we had seen earlier. 

But Sharon suggested we rest for a while, so I stretched out on a stone wall and tried to take a nap. When was the last time you tried that?  But after resting a bit, we decided to limp on in to town. Here we go, down a row, as I had said so many times we were both sick of hearing it!

We walked and walked and walked some more. At least twice I tried to hail a passing cab, but they never slowed down. Finally, as we had crossed the main highway and made it into Santiago, I met the man I had been wanting to meet! There was a little restaurant with several cars parked around it, and one of them a rather large van with a taxi sign stuck to the top. There was no driver in sight, and Sharon observed he was probably inside having lunch, as it was about 2:30.

We stood there for a few moments trying to decide what to do, when a man emerged from the restaurant. He looked at us, we looked at him, and I asked, "Is this your taxi?" The nicest words I had heard all day were when he replied, "¡Si, señor!"

We engaged his services and he drove us to our hotel, the Santiago Nest Style just about six blocks from the cathedral. We. Were surprised at how far it was, and I know I could not made it on foot the whole way. But the Camino had seen to it that we walk into town under our own steam! Someone has observed, "The Camino doesn't always give you what you want, but it gives you what you need."

Our hotel was in a nice part of town, with shops and restaurants and lots of bakeries! Here was our view up Rua do Doutor Teixera:

And just look at some of these!

Ramon cookies! They have Ramon cookies here! If you haven't seen the movie, you won't get the reference!

Due to an error on my part in booking our hotel, we found that we were booked all the way through Thursday night and it was a reservation that could not be changed. One of the pilgrims we visited with observed that sometimes the Camino uses our mistakes for our own good, and I don't think we could have headed back to Lisbon any sooner! We need these four days to rest and recover!

As we headed over towards the cathedral, a tall American with a big smile greeted us. "You made it, congratulations!" he said. We greeted him in return, and as we walked away I asked Sharon if she remembered where we had met him.  "No idea," she said.

We stood there looking at the cathedral for a few moments, when someone else spoke to us. We looked and it was the young Belgian girl with whom we had visited over breakfast two days earlier!

I had often wondered how so many Europeans found time and resources to make the pilgrimage, and she explained it.  I think probably most Americans are unaware that our European counterparts are given an entire month off in the summer--June, July or August--and in addition, they are given an extra month of salary to help pay for vacation expenses. That is in addition to other holiday days off and vacation time. Try to negotiate THAT package at your next job!

But in Belgium, she explained, you are given 12 months that you can take off over the life of your career, and the young lady told us she had taken three to make this trip. Your employer holds your job for you, although you don't get paid. However, the Belgian government does pay your 500 euros a month, or about $700, to help you with expenses.

We were as delighted to see our young friend as if we had known each other for a long time, even though we had never even exchanged names. She told us she had gotten in the day before and already had her Compostela. She showed us the Pilgrim Office just around the corner and suggested we peek inside to see how long the line was. 

She told us she was supposed to meet a friend here in the plaza, and they were to meet at either 6 or 8 p.m. As there was no sign of her friend, she would check back in two hours. It is amazing the friendships and acquaintances you make along the way.

So we went on and got in line, filling in a few dates that needed to be written in our pilgrim passport. We received our Compostelas with no problems.

We were about worn out, and quite frankly a little tired of the pilgrim menus to which we had become so intimately acquainted. We picked a more familiar place to eat our dinner, and we were quite delighted that they were so happy to see us, they made us the King and Queen of the place!

We are going to rest up here until Friday morning, and we have already purchased our train tickets back to Portugal. We will head back down that way, spend some time with friends, and then fly back home on July 18.

We are still processing what the trip means to us, and I'm sure we will have further thoughts about the Way. Someone suggested on Facebook that we turn around and walk back so we can continue to post pictures. Sorry, that is not happening! But as I observed, I do have about 2,000 photos on memory cards that I took with my camera. Most of the ones you've seen here were taken with my iPhone. How many of the 2,000 do you want to see?

Sharon just went down to the ladies' shop next door to buy some new clothes--try wearing the same three sets in a row for nearly a month! 

Right now, all I want to do after getting up from my last nap is grab a bite to eat or shower and then take another nap. 

We've noticed that we are no longer pilgrims, and that is a little sad. When we went down for breakfast this morning, Sharon greeted the whole room, as we have done for more than three weeks, with a cheery "¡Buenos dias!" There was little or no reaction, as the only people in the place were tourists, not pilgrims. The Fellowship of the Camino had been disbanded!

But as we headed back out on to the street for an errand, you could still spot a few of them. They wear backpacks and hats, carry walking sticks with clam sheels and gourds attached, and many of them walk with a limp. But when you greet them, they always respond:

"Buen camino!"

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!

From John to James

There are trails that lead from all over the world and end up in Santiago de Compostela, but the one we are following is called the Camino Frances, or the French way. Although it could begin nearly anywhere in France, typically it begins in the small border town of St. Jean Pied de Port and continues on for 800 kilometers to Santiago.

It was slow to dawn on me, but it did finally occur that St. Jean is French for St. John, while Santiago is Spanish for Saint James. Someone walking the Camino from St. Jean to Santiago would be walking from John to James, the two sons of Zebedee, two of the earliest disciples of Jesus Christ!

James and John, the Sons of Boanerges, the Sons of Thunder! John was the disciple whom Jesus had loved, who was given charge of Mary at Jesus' own wish from the cross. John was the only disciple who lived to old age, and in fact, the rumor had sprung up that John would live again until Jesus returned. He lived to write five books of the New Testament--the Gospel of John, the letters 1, 2 and 3 John, and the final book of the Bible, Revelations.

But his brother James was one of the first disciples to die, and he was martyred in about A.D. 44 by King Herod, the Bible tells us in the book of Acts. Peter was arrested at that same time, but miraculously lived to preach another day.

One of the most encouraging verses I read in the entire Bible comes at the end of the book of James (no relation to our James, the son of Zebedee!). In talking about the power of prayer of a righteous man, the writer James observes that the worker of some of the greatest miracles in the Bible--Elijah, who called down fire from heaven--was a man just like us.

We tend to think that men like John and James were somehow different than we are, that we place the word Saint in front of their names because they were a different kind of human being from us. Larger than life, almost like Superman!

But they didn't start out that way! At one point they asked Jesus if they shouldn't call down fire from heaven to consume a village that had refused to accept him. Jesus said no. They were among the disciples who wanted to keep little children from coming to Jesus to be blessed, and Jesus had to correct them and command them to let the little children come. Jesus loves it when the simple ones--the ones without great learning, understanding or stature--want to come to him to be blessed. And John and James were the ones whose mother asked of Jesus that they be allowed to sit on either side of him when he entered his kingdom. Jesus had to correct her also.

James and John were also among the last to see Jesus before he ascended into heaven. They heard his words that they were to be witnesses when the power of the Holy Spirit had come upon them, and they would carry the message of a new life through faith in Jesus Christ to the ends of the earth, beginning there in Jerusalem, and extending to Judea, and Samaria, and to Finisterre--the ends of the earth!

When the disciples began to be persecuted by the Jewish leaders for teaching about following The Way of Jesus Christ, their persecutors could not help but notice that they were unschooled, ordinary men. But they took notice that they had been with Jesus!

Tradition holds that James came to Spain and proclaimed the Good News here, before returning to Jerusalem to be put to death. There are lots of stories and traditions that have sprung up about him.

But at least one thing is certain--James was a follower of Jesus Christ. If indeed he came to Spain before his death, he did so to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And what is that Gospel, that Good News?

It can be summed up in one verse of the Bible that was penned by James' own brother, John, when he wrote:

"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believed in him would not perish, but have everlasting life."  (The Gospel of John, chapter 3, verse 16.)

From John to James, the Way of Santiago, the Apostle to the Iberian peninsula, is still the same--the way of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the One who said, "I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. No man comes to the Father except through me."

Day 23

We had intended for today to be a day of rest, and it almost was! We slept in a bit, then went down for breakfast about 9 and asked for late check-out. We haggled over the time, I first suggested medio dia. What do you consider medio dia, he asked. Good question, as it doesn't get dark here until 10:30 p.m.! I suggested 12, he said 11 and we finally agreed on 11:30 a.m.

It was supposed to rain today, but it was only overcast when we were breaking our fast. This was the view out the front of the Hotel Suiza as we ate our toast and drank our coffee and fresh-squeezed orange juice.

It had rained at some point as there was still water on the cars and streets. We had talked about taking a cab to our next lodging, as it was only 2.5 miles away by Google Maps. And the only reason we were changing rooms instead of staying here for two nights was that although the room rates go up the closer you get to Santiago, in this case the quality had gone down. It was ok, but not worth 15 euros more than the night before!

We finally decided that since we were so close, we would just walk, even though we had our loaded backpacks with us. We had gotten used to sending them on ahead and even though Sharon's weighs in about 14 pounds and mine about 18, they do get heavy! You must call the night before so the transport service knows to stop by and pick them up. We have seen the transport service vans a time or too, and it must be quite an endeavor picking up all the bags in one town and carrying them onward to the next stop. And so far they have always arrived, usually before we do!

It was about 11:15 a.m. when we started walking, and even with our backpacks, we were filled with high hopes and good spirits. The sign leading out of town certainly contributed to that:

Santiago, 36! Why, we could probably walk that in one day if we really, really  wanted to! What's that, about 22 miles?

Although we only walked a short distance today, it was packed with adventure. The trail was wonderful, level for the most part and on soft dirt, through thick eucalpytus forests. Occasionally the Camino would break out onto farm land or a hillside, but mostly it was forest.

We were passed by two young Spaniards on bicycles and they were feeling in grand form! They were singing at the top of their lungs and weaving back and forth. Very shortly a third one came by so we burst into a short chorus of "We are the threeeeeee amigos!" They didn't stop to listen.

Soon we heard sounds behind us and it was a car on the camino, a nearly new Audi! We stepped aside and let it pass, and a short time later it returned. We soon found out why, as the trail narrowed and there was no room for it to pass.

There weren't many pilgrims out, either because of the time of day or the weather, but we spoke with a few. Very shortly we heard sounds behind us again and this huge white dog came bounding towards us! He seemed friendly enough, but he didn't really pay any attention to us, just took care to mark the trail a bit.

And before long we heard sounds again and turned around to see a pilgrim coming towards us on horse back.

 

It was a young Spanish girl riding the horse with a man at the lead. As the trail came up to the paved road, we saw the same Audi that had passed us earlier waiting for the trio. The girl dismounted, said her farewells and gave the horse a kiss. Her ride was over.  

I passed on by the horse being careful not to walk behind it and Sharon waited as the man took the girl's place on the horse's back. The horse wasn't happy at all with this change and the man had some difficulty controlling it. He resolved his difficulties using the whip in his hand, but I say if you have to hit a horse in the head with your whip, you're doing it wrong! After much stopping, starting and some backing up, they finally were off and we were glad to see them go, though sorry for the horse's sake.

I assured Sharon that at any minute, we would see a sign advertising our hostel, for which we had reserved a room for the night. I'll save the name of it for after we have checked out! But we never saw a sign.

We came up to a beautiful hillside overlooking a lush crop of corn, and I had to take a picture or two (or three or four). They don't do the scene justice.

If the clouds looked foreboding, it wasn't long before it began to drizzle. We had been walking nearly an hour and should have made it to the trail that would lead to our hostel, which was half a kilometer off the Camino.

No sign of a trail to the right or any indication towards our hostel, but plenty of signs of rain. The drizzle turned to a sprinkle and the sprinkle to a rain and when we crossed an open part of the road that was under construction we were not protected by trees and were blasted by wind. Luckily we had our ponchos and we needed them!

We saw other pilgrims doing the same as we had done, pulling out their ponchos and putting them on. We were beginning to feel sorry for ourselves until we saw someone who was obviously in worse shape than we were in!

At lease we weren't sleeping in a small tent in somebody's open barnyard! All the pilgrims we saw stopped to take this same picture.

At long last we came to a little coffee shop and it was packed with soaked pilgrims. The cafe was hardly much bigger than a shoebox, but we crowded in with the others and I managed to get up to the counter. I asked one of the girls working there if she knew where our hostel was located and she pointed back up the road. It was a ways back. We had walked past it! But she offered to call and see if the innkeeper wouldn't come pick us up so we gratefully accepted her offer.

She hung up and said the innkeeper was busy, but he would be here in about 20 minutes. That would give us enough time to grab a bite, as it was a little past 12:30 and we had been walking, mostly in the rain, for over 90 minutes. Sharon's spirits were damp, to say the least, and when I asked what she wanted to eat, she told me to just pick something. I pointed at something in the glass display case that turned out to be tuna empanada.  There is obviously a surfeit of tuna in this country, as we have seen it and eaten it with many, many meals! Two bottles of water, a tuna empanada, a package of Oreos, some mixed nuts and some hazelnuts turned out to be lunch for the day!

After eating, I stepped outside the cafe to see if our innkeeper had arrived yet, but there was no sign of him. Sharon asked me to hold her bag while she visited the loo. I stood under an umbrella, watching a young Dutch couple talk with another young Dutchman wearing a rainbow cap and smoking a handrolled something when a late-model blue Mercedez-Benz van pulled up. It was our innkeeper! 

We were glad to pile our wet things in the back of his Mercedez and take the short hop back in his vehicle. His Spanish wasn't exactly Castillian, but it wasn't exactly Galician either. But of course, my Spanish wasn't really Spanish, either, but we still were able to communicate.

When we drove up to the hostel we were delighted that it was new and modern and immaculately appointed. There were wooden floors in the rooms, which were large with a spacious, clean bathroom. All three floors were very nice and well appointed, with a common living room, kitchen and dining room. There was original art on all the walls. The only thing the place lacked was people! It was just the two of us and the innkeeper, a pleasant enough little fellow who said he was 55.

We asked if we might have a cup of coffee and he said he would turn on the machine, but first he had to run an errand and would be right back. We were welcome to relax, enjoy our room, wash our clothes, whatever.  He drove off in the Mercedez and we just hoped he hadn't gone to talk to his mother who lived in the house on the hill!

The room had a comfortable double bed, three windows on one side, a built-in cabinet stocked with blankets and an extra pillow (you cannot imagine how nice this is, as we have only had the one double-wide pillow to share for the last few nights!).  

We threw all our dirty clothes into the washer and Sharon jumped into bed, pulled a blanket up over her and opened up her Kindle app to continue working on the murder mystery she has been reading. I couldn't help but notice a little door set into the wall a few feet away from our bed. It was a little over three feet tall, with only a keyhole, no handle or any way of opening it from our side. Here's what it looked like:

I had propped my walking stick up beside it without paying it much attention to it, but now it caught my eye. It was right in the corner of the wall, and there were scuff marks along the wall in front of it.

"I wonder what that little door is for," one of us asked, innocently. Sharon glanced over at it and seemed to notice it for the first time.

"Hmm," I mused aloud. "I bet it's so the little guy can open it from the inside and come into our room late at night while we are asleep." As I was coming back from the bathroom, I couldn't help but notice that Sharon had gotten out from under her warm blanket and was placing a chair in front of the door, like so:

"That probably won't do any good," I said helpfully, pointing out the scuff marks along the wall in front of the door. "Looks like somebody has tried to do that before!" I don't remember the rest of our conversation.

The innkeeper was really a pleasant fellow, said he ran an appliance store in Arzúa during the week, came here when he wasn't working. We talked about our hometowns, where we were from, and I pulled out my phone and showed him Arkansas to help him distinguish it from Kansas. Almost everyone we've talked to about our home state has confused it with Kansas, and one gentleman had even observed that we must have much wheat there. No, we don't.

He told us about his children, and said that one of his daughters was studying psychology and she was the one who had painted all of the pictures throughout the hostel. I was particularly drawn to this one, which was located down the hall from our room:

I'm not exactly sure how to interpret it, but it seems pleasant enough, given the surroundings!

Actually, as the afternoon wore on, more pilgrims began to arrive and it was somewhat reassuring to know we weren't the only ones in the place.  There doesn't seem to be any place to eat nearby, but the little coffee shop has a pizza menu and the friendly innkeeper said he could even make us a salad if we would like.

That sounds delicious! One with tuna fish, perhaps.

When we went down at 7 the tiny cafe was nearly full. A French couple and two Italian ladies were speaking a mixture of French, Spanish and some Italian. There is a sporting event of some kind on the television.

It's really a nice place to stay and we would come back again sometime. We are at least 2.5 miles closer to Santiago and we plan to go to O Pedrouzo on Sunday night. From O Pedrouzo we will walk to Villamaior, which is on the Santiago side of the Labacolla Airport that serves the famed city.  Then Tuesday morning, we plan to get up and walk in to town and arrive at the cathedral in time for the noon mass. What a trip this has been! And it is not quite over yet!

Day 22

We saw three people go down on the Camino in two separate incidents today, the first we have seen since we began walking. 

We had gone less than an hour out of Melide when a group of about six Italian ladies passed Sharon, then passed me. Five of them were walking more or less abreast and one was just behind them. The lady in the rear caught her toe on a rock jutting up from the trail. It probably would have been just a stumble, but as she lurched forward she careened into one of the ladies ahead of her and they both went down. I was literally a foot away from her when she stumbled but all I could do was watch. Fortunately neither was injured. The lady who stumbled was aware of what had happened, but the lady she "tackled" never saw it coming. After she hit the ground and looked to see what had happened....well, let's just say that if looks could kill!

The second was a near-fainting spell that happened to a lady from Austria. I had been talking with a Spanish gentleman who was walking with a little girl. We parted company but just up the road I saw him helping the lady get down safely to a resting spot.

We didn't know what had happened, but as we arrived on the scene she spoke English and said she was just tired. The man offered her water but she had a bottle. Sharon offered her some of our trail mix with raisins and she was glad to accept. Perhaps it was low blood sugar. But the lady insisted she was fine, just needed to rest, and urged us not to stay, so we didn't.

Sure enough, not a quarter-mile down the road the Austrian lady caught up with us and we walked together for a while. She was from the south of Austria, near Italy and asked if we had ever been there. I told her I had once trained across Austria en route to Bovec, Slovenia and she was familiar with the area. I didn't mention that I had once seen the Most Boca in Slovenia, as I didn't want to brag and certainly didn't want to imply that Slovenia is prettier or More Boca than Austria.

We had a very nice conversation and she told us she was travelling with a group from Belgium.  She had been pushing herself too hard on the Camino and intended to have lunch and rest at the next stop. When we crossed the river at Ribadiso we sat down for lunch inside the little coffee shop and afterwards discovered that she had been dining outside. When we got to our place of lodging for the night, who should we see sitting out front but the nice lady from Austria! The Camino is a small world!

We had started about 8:15 this morning and it turned out to be one of our longest days. Just outside of Melide we stopped to have our credentials stamped at the little church of Santa Maria. Though it wasn't large or ostentatious, it dated back quite a ways. The doorkeeper who stamped our passport told us that the baptistery font was from the 14th century and the wrought iron works behind it from the 12th. The fresco behind the altar was from the 14th century and had only recently been restored to its original colors. I inquired about the statues on the wall and while he explained who the figures were on either side of Mary and Jesus, the names didn't mean anything to me. I noted that Mary was wearing her crown as "Queen of the Universe" and a diminutive Jesus sits in her lap. It is always astounding to me to think that people were coming in to this church to worship God long before Christopher Colombus was ever born or dreamed of discovering America!

It was overcast most of the day and we crossed a number of rivers. Two of them were over Roman bridges, but the most unique was a makeshift crossing with stones stacked across the crystal clear water. There was a man sitting at the crossing who pointed me towards an area where I could get an unobstructed view of the bridge. While I moved over to take the picture, Sharon kept visiting with him and they compared shirts and jackets. Our jackets, of course, are in Portuguese and proclaim Jesus as the only way. The t-shirts he was selling said Cristo viva em mi, and Sharon discovered that he was a missionary from Spain with the Assemblies of God church. We wished him well as we parted company, as we had not seen many evangelicals on the Camino. 

The other bridge we crossed was over the Rio Iso as we came in to the little town of Ribadiso. A plaque proclaimed it to be the oldest documented bridge in Galicia, serving between Lucas Augusta and Aseconia, as Santiago was formerly known. Fransiscan nuns had operated a hospital at the site for centuries to attend to the needs of pilgrims making their way to Santiago. 

We stopped in Ribadiso for lunch, thinking we were perhaps a mile or two from Arzúa and our hotel. When we left the cafeteria, the sun had come out and the countryside seemed to have been transformed as well. There were more beautiful flowers than I had seen in one short span of time.  My friend Jim will be proud of these pictures:

It was definitely farming country as well, and we saw sheep, cows, hayfields, corn and some chicken houses. A time or two we even passed milking sheds and at one point saw a line of cows being milked. There was an absolutely gorgeous panorama at the top of one hill!

This cow had its head stuck under the fence and was reaching for the furthest sprigs of green grass it could reach, but of course it pulled its head back and looked at me as I prepared to snap its picture.  There is a surprise in this picture that you might miss if you don't study it carefully!

Did you spot the surprise (and no, it's not Sharon!)? Just to the right of where the cow is standing in this picture is a small stream running. About 20-30 feet beyond where the cow was grazing, someone was gazing intently into the water, perhaps waiting for a fish to come by!

Like most of the cats we have seen, this one paid absolutely no attention whatsoever to us. We called to it, made cat noises, the whole works, but it never looked our way. We wonder if the cats in Galicia are deaf! We left it to its fishing and continued our walk.

We always look forward to our first stop of the day, and again this day it was quite a ways to the first stop. The cafe was nearly brand new and had been in operation for just two years. They had some delicious looking pastries!

The day wore on and on and owing to one section being quite steep, I developed a bit of a catch in my hip and Sharon's ankle was bothering her. We thought we would never get to Arzúa and were a little disappointed that the Hotel Suiza where we are staying was on the far side of town, about a kilometer off the main drag. It has not been our favorite place to stay, but it is home for the night and we plan to sleep late tomorrow, perhaps find another lodging in this town for the evening or go one little bit further. Tomorrow will definitely be our day of rest, as our bodies both declare they need one!

As we got back from dinner (and we took a taxi both going AND coming) I told Sharon I wish I had never started this blog. But of course, we are both glad we did, as even now stops and people and views are all running together. Over dinner, I asked Sharon if she remembered when we had seen the Assemblies of God missionary. She looked thoughtful and was trying to remember, when I said, "It was this morning!" It seemed days ago!

The greatest encouragement of the day was hooking up to wifi, updating our Google Maps and discovering the following:

We are only 23-24 miles away from our journey's end! We hope to walk Sunday and Monday and then arrive Tuesday morning in Santiago. We will spend Tuesday afternoon and all day Wednesday there before taking the train Thursday from Santiago to Vigo, Spain, on to Oporto, Portugal and finally to Lisbon. The end of our pilgrimage is finally in sight! What will it be like? What will we have learned? Let us wait and see!