We only made 17K today. My knee takes uphill very well, and there is always uphill. But Newton lives on and what goes up so easily also screams aloud as it comes down. After a bit, walking on flat ground is not effortless either. Ay-ya-ya-ya! This is disheartening.
We leave town and quickly enter a eucalyptus forest. It is humid and sunless. It reminds me of a rainforest, even though I've never been in a southern rainforest. The light is green. There are large ferns. The birds chirp, and I almost forget my troubles as the Camino winds slowly up around a hill for a K or two. Then the trouble begins. Not only does the path start to descend, it does so complete with slippery mud and moss covered rock. Knee pain and risk of falling, wonderful eh?
We come into a small town, Cuderillo, that seems to have had a rich patron at one times the name Seguros is on the school, on a palacio, and the church is far larger and more ornate than you would expect in a town of this size. It is a lovely place for our morning coffee. As we leave the bar we run, once again, into a 60 something German woman we have seen intermittently since San Sebastian (day 2). She speaks a little English, and since we keep seeing her, she always greets us with a smile. We walk together for a ways, but since she is Nordic, and I am gimpy, she soon walks on.
The Camino dumps us onto a busy road for a K or so of roadwalking. Pete and I have joked about the seeming lack of work ethic here in Spain; nothing opens until after 9, most stores close from 2 or 3 until 4:30 or 5, and everybody dines at 9 and chats until long after we peregrinos have retired for the night. Well, today every 18 wheeler in Spain seems to have taken into their head to drive on this little two lane highway (think US-12) to show us that the Spanish indeed have loads to do or at least loads to deliver. We are swooshed repeatedly. When we are not being swooshed by trucks, the auto traffic is thick and constant. We have to cross this mayhem after a while to leave it behind. As I look for an opening in the traffic, I ask forgiveness for every curse I've uttered under my breath this morning over my knee and promise to try to stop complaining if only . . .It must have been absolutely comic to see us scamper across that road. I'm 'running' on a bum flipper laden with a 10 kilo pack, pinned on soggy socks flapping behind, and a feeling of desperate fear that I'll be flattened like a bug by a truck driver laughing fiendishly about 'showing me work ethics'.
Our next joy is a beach that while a K out of our way allows us to eat a leisurely lunch from our pack supplies (chirizo, fruit, and the rest of yesterday's bread for Pete and amazingly good canned tuna and fruit for me), dip our feet in the ocean, and watch two guys gear up and go out spear fishing. We spent a luxurious 45 minutes there. I shared prayers with Megan S and Midge F with joy and delight.
We walk for about an 1 1/2 more and come to Soto de Lunia. I decide to call it quits for the day to see if an afternoon with no pack and poles will help. As we round into town, who should we see but the two American college fellas: Jack and Seth. We join them for a cola, sign in at the bar for the albergure (the bar owner is the hospitalero), and then all head up to the school that is now the albergue. We're first so Pete and I both pick lowers: mine is one nearest a wall and there is another bunk shoved up close. Pete picks one a bit away from me. Heck there are 18 bunks here, why squeeze? I shower, do laundry, then to bed to prop my knee up and snooze, and as I snooze, the place starts to fill. First its 4 Italians excited about life and animatedly sharing that excitement with each other. Next the Spanish arrive, followed by a happy Dane and some Germans. Now the place is really filling up. Soon in walks another pair from the past---back in San Vicente we saw the American lads with a German guy and a college aged gal I called 'the world's tallest Austrian'. She was about 6'4" and giggled endlessly with the German kid when they came in tipsy from a festive evening in San Vicente. Well, over she strides to my little place in the world and as she puts some stuff in the bed right (I mean right) next to me she says in an Arnold Schwarzenegar kind of voice: 'Are you the American?' I was a bit taken aback, I didn't know I was that obvious, but she said she remembered us from before and she had seen Pete outside. I offered, 'hey I'll help you move the bunks apart.' She looked right down at me from her great height and said, 'why? I'm not afraid of you.' I believed her absolutely, and I didn't say what immediately came to my mind about someone fearing someone. So this night I would enjoy the gentle swishing snore of the worlds tallest Austrian from the moment she awakened me by thumping into the bunk with a giggle until dawn peeked into the window.
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