It’s not like I needed to be up at 5 am today to start walking. Leon is only 18 kilometers from the auberge where I slept — fitfully among the hackers and wheezers. (Swear to god, thought I was in a TB ward.)
Call it the tyranny of the mob.
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Today went by blazingly fast. So fast, it is barely half done and the walk is over.
The walk between Bercianos Del Real Camino and Mansilla de las Mulas was 17 miles and for the first time since I started, I arrived at my auberge before check-in time.
That called for a coffee and pastry at the adjacent cafe.
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Today was only a 20-kilometer walk from Hornillos to Castrojeriz, but I still left long before sunrise.
There is something primal about walking alone in darkness, assisted only by a headlamp or the full moon.
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You’d think a day off would mean rest and relaxation. But no.
I spent nearly the entire morning walking about in the massive cathedral. It is not so much a place of worship as a … well … I don’t know what.
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Last night in Santo Domingo, a woman from Wisconsin handed me a “tree of life” sticker which I promptly pasted on the back of my iPhone case. Next to the one from DeYoung museum in San Francisco.
She handed them out several of them to people in our auberge bunk room.
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Today was a long one — 18 miles from Los Arcos to Logroño— but it felt like it took no time at all.
It was different from the start.
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Just keep on walking all day long!
Since arriving at Casa de la Abuela at 3 pm, I have checked in, made up my bunk with the sheet and pillow case provided, grabbed a responsibly long hot shower, gathered together the dusty clothes for laundry, hung laundry to dry, walked down the street for a cold Coke, booked a room for tomorrow in Logroño, discussed hiking strategies for tomorrow with bunk-room mates, answered e-mail, went shopping for trail snacks, had dinner with housemates, organized my pack for tomorrow…
Today’s walk from Estella to Logroño was 13.5 miles in 85 degree heat.
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The energy on the street builds like a pressure cooker as pilgrims arrive from all directions, register for their Camino, hunt for food and drink, check into auberges for the night or trundle up the road to the Pyrenees.
At 10 am when our train arrived from Bayonne, St. Jean was oddly quiet.
“Where is everybody?” I asked a Dubliner named Guy in the Camino registration office.
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So, this is France. Nice place. Bayonne, specifically. Having left San Miguel de Allende on Sunday morning by ETN bus, it is now Monday night and I got to Bayonne just in time to catch the sunset.
Let me tell you that between there and here, not much happened. In Mexico City, I sent my Uber driver to the wrong terminal at CDMX.
No problem. That’s what the tram is for.
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An element of a plaza water fountain in Pontevedra, in which the shape of the spouting water is constantly changing to some hidden rhythm. The statue of the little boy always seems to get his mouthful, however.
Pontevedra to Caldas de Reis (22.2 kilometers, felt like 22.2 except for a very flat stretch of open and empty road after the sun came out)
We awake to a different Pontevedra this morning. Last night, we walked through gray granite and stone canyons, brightened only by the logos and signage of commerce and colorful storefront pitches for their wares, and the occasional art installation. And graffiti, ambitious graffiti murals in fluorescent colors.
But otherwise, a gray city fostering teeming waves of pedestrian life along traffic-free streets.
Now, in the morning gloom, the rain and the streetlamps have washed everything with a shimmering amber sheen. A neon art project sings like an aria to the skies above. The pulsing cherry-sherbert lighting on a plaza fountain vibrates with a force unfelt in daytime. Continue reading
