Rain at Last

We have walked for 12 days in beautiful sun shine and pretty warm weather so far. the mornings are much cooler as there have been 2 occassions when I really benefitted from myt fleece hat and gloves. We have walked more kms lately each day and certainly felt the effect of that with greater fatique and also sore feet. With 26 kms and then 24 the following day, we have today only walked 18 kms which was pretty much a cake walk. We have now covered 268 kms in total!!
We have been walking through farm land for the past 3 days although still close enough to the wine country that we get a jug of vino tinto with each meal along with the jug of water. Today for the first time we had a good rainy day and were able to test out our rain gear which worked quite well. By noon, the sun was out and so everything was able to dry out before clouds returned once again.
We are now a group of 4 with a plan to follow the Danish schedule to get us to Santiago by Oct 1. Kirsten is our leader and because she is the youngest she scouts out the way out of town while we have our afternoon siesta. She is also the story teller and relates wonderful mythological stories to us in her beautiful accent, as we walk and when we stop for a break. Alvina is our French Canadian poet and each day has a special quote for us. She is very well read and can tell us many things as we walk and talk and has such wonderful travel experiences and profound interests in art and literature and music. I find her quite an inspiration. Barb is a traveller and very down to earth and talks to everyone whether they understand her or not! They have decided that I am Maggee the practical, providing food, medicines and good advice when needed. We have also picked up a Dutch woman walking on her own so we are quite a group and already have the reputation of being the ones with laughter and good wishes for everyone along the way.
We have become expert at fixing the problems of the feet and you would laugh to see the surgery that gets performed on our blisters. First you take a needle and white thread and run it through some iodine and then you push the needle and the thread right through the blister to the other side, pulling the thread through so that you can tie it in a knot. this allows the blister to drain and thus heal itself. We will all have funny looking black bits of thread hanging from various locations on our feet when this is done. Blisters appear in new places when the terrain changes or if it gets wet or if you do anything to change your foot wear. For me I have a new blister which comes from a piece of tape that I put on one toe to protect it!
This is quite a journey and I am so enjoying just the reflective time along the way especially in the early morning when it is very dark and quiet and we walk with our various flashlights, and as the sun comes up and the day light appears, there are sounds of birds and the early morning awakening to the day.
We are able to cover at least 12 - 15 kms by 9 am each day which is the first stop for cafe con leche and a pastry. We are able to arrive at our albeque by 1 or 2 pm each day and have usually covered about 22 - 24 kms by then which is enough for now. Each accommodation has been wonderful, clean and very adequate and the people we travel with are polite, friendly and very nice to be with. No problems with any thing like I had read about on the on line forums I had been reading.
Tomorrow we will reach Burgos which is one of the largest cities we will cross and look forward to the cathedral there which is supposed to be the most beautiful one in Europe. We plan to start to pick up our pace so that we can walk longer distances once we pass Burgos as the meseta (prairie I think) is flatter and easier to walk. there have been plenty of hills each day and so we are getting quite fit with the effort required to do this each day, sometimes the most difficult are first thing in the morning which gets you going pretty good!
I am finding that the experience of travelling like this is both cheap in dollars and so rich in experience and with each morning, you never know what wonderful thing will transpire through the day. We meet a lot of very wonderful people and sometimes we are talking different languages _ for example_ the directions for fixing our feet were entirely in Portugese from a man who had acted as a voluntter hospitalero in Leon and had seen many messy feet in his experience. We also communicate with the Italian couple every day in abundance and between theri limited French and ours, we have a great friendship developing. So many things to learn from the simple experiences of life. We share dormitories with sometimes more than 20 beds, I am getting good arm muscles from swinging like a monkey from the top bunk which I prefer. We have common showers and toilet areas so that there is modesty, but practicality as well and we all seem to get along just fine and there are no problems that I have noticed at all with these arrangements.
I am travelling as I had imagined except it is richer becuase of the friendships that are forming and these are inspiring me to think about how I will enrich my life when I get home. There is generosity and wisdom from each person and such wonderful converstions each day. Such a cheap and abundant experience I could not have imagined for my life and I see how people become addicted to this Camino. It is not so much the journey itself, although it is magical walking through these ancient villages, it is rather the raw human experience of just being together with others on a common mission, ie to explore our purpose in life and to get to a simpler place of living.
Rain tomorrow and even that is not a problem as we are well equipped and this just adds to the interest of this experience.
Buen Camino..........Maggee