C15: proper pilgrim

390Km done 309Km to go. Blisters 1. Mantras 8900

I´ve (at last) passed the half way point. It´s been a bit ghastly thinking that it would be quicker to go back than to go ahead, but no longer. But I´m tired and am now a proper pilgrim, having cultivated a blister. The monastery I was planning to stay in is closed with bed-bugs, so pretty mediaeval still. There are pilgrims hospitals and cemetries all along the way. Its not so long ago that lice and fleas carried typhus and plague and not just annoyance.

The scenery has been of enormous wheatfields and long (very long) Roman roads. One picture (disappointing) shows ´houses built into the hillside, with chimneys coming out of the grass like hobbits homes and (you probably can´t see it) TV aerials just to show what century we are in. The fiddle playing family are Canadian, travelling with donkeys along my route, sweet kids, crazy parents.

love to all

C8: hit the wall and bounced

216Km done 488Km to go. Blisters 0. Wonky knees 0

Well, I´ve walked for 7 days. Hit the wall yesterday, tired and dragging myself along but seem much better today and walked 40Km into El Cid´s city, Burgos. I think if El Cid were alive now he would be wearing cool shades and carrying a kalashnikov over his shoulder. I´m staying in a bottom-of-the-range pension rather than another refuge.
Picture 1 is me pulling wine from the wine fountain (the fountain to the right provides water) in Rioja country. Charity to me and other pilgrims from the producer
Picture 2 shows a proper pediatrician (foot doctor) at work. He is a volunteer Dutch evangelist who helps run a refugio for people like me....
Picture 3 shows a different refugio, inside a church fills up with pilgrims who are given mats on the floor and a meal (but no earplugs)
Picture 4 shows the sign at that refuge (´give what you can, take what you need´. Its so strange being the object of all this charity but very wonderful. And the people on the way look out for you. One day I met 3 bodhisattvas before breakfast who set me on the right path (its hard to get lost, but possible...) Usually when you are just about to feel adrift you notice a yellow arrow on a post or on a rock or on the road, and you are off again.

I´m missing people a lot...and our soppy dog who is always please to see me. There is not much English spoken so I put together all my non-English (mixture of French and Italian) and try my best. The other pilgrims are mainly Spanish and French though there are a sprinkling of other languages. I had supper the other day with a Canadian and an Italian, we opted for French as the least-worst compromise.
Its quite hard work, no doubt about it. Set off in the dark at about 7am and the Spanish bars don´t really open till 10 for the first cafe con leche when you hit a village. But the scenery is great. The Rioja winefields are groaning with grapes, the effort of getting them all picked seems superhuman. But we are in wheat and sunflower country and its all brown and dry. I usually walk alone - but walked this morning with a man with bilateral hip replacements - and he really was going!

Love to you all

camino 1

Day one Homage to Brigit Jones
4Km done 702 to go. Blisters 0. (waist hip ratio 0.86....Ann Louise, this is really embarassing. I wasn´t goint to publish my weight on the internet so your suggestion seemed good, but I hadn´t measured my waist for YEARS. Thats so what middle age is all about!)

Anyway I´m on my way. After the 4Km (itself after the flight to Bilbao and the bus to Pamplona) I picked up my credencial from a rather stern but holy lady and set off. I spent my first night at a refugio run by the Knights of Malta which has crusade era roots when they specialised in moor-killing. Several firsts today. First long conversations with fellow`pilgrims, first outdoor wee, first cafe con leche.

The picture is the best my little eBay camera could do in the mist. Its at the top of a ridge near a forest of wind turbines. The ´horses´are metal, the little pilgrim is me!

So far so good