Sept 11 Comillas to Unquera 31km!!!

What a day. It started out beautifully with the weather being so nice. We were awake early and me not feeling so great still, but it is better to carry on walking as I finkd it easier than sitting around. And the environment is inspiring and takes my mind off myself too. Ilana is in bad shape this morning and cannot walk well at all. It looks like she has an allergic reaction to the sun and the heat of her clothes and her boots. So out friend Christianne from Geneva has taken things in order and has decided to take her back to Santander on the bus to the hospital and will be the guide and the translator as she has command of 6 languages. She is something!!, but says that this IS the Camino and what she must do for Ilana. We say a very sad good bye to her as we leave the alberque that morning.
It is a hot day and we are climbing more steeply today than we have for some time so it is a bit of an effort. I am noticing that the hills do not bother me anymore. well not that I can climb Mt Everest yet, but is is surely easier than the first few days and I feel strong inspite of feeling ill and tired. I have decided that this camino is about the people and not so much the environment which with its beauty really inspires one to think of the simplicity of the moment and what can be created as we go along. Compassion and generosity are profound and normally abundant as we walk and it is quite a special community of people that we are walking with now.
By the time we arrived at our destination in Unquera, it was about 9 hours later and I was pretty washed out. Luckily, we found a wonderful little hotel and so I have a room to myself for only 16 E. It is called the Rio Deva and I highly recommend this placeas there is not alberque in Unquera. We have a great dinner and fall to sleep easliy, listening to the rain fall heaily all night long.
Thought for the day
"As you walk, with each footstep, in the silence of the hills and the music of the natural surroundings, you come closer to knowing yourself in the deep way and it must be this that brings you close to God"
Maggee