On the Camino

I am about to begin my 5th day of walking on the Camino de Santiago. I have walked 45 miles so far. I have only about 350 miles to go. This is a very strange experience. We get up about 6 in the morning, walk until about 3 or 4 in the afternoon, find a hostel to stay in, do laundry, walk about the town, have an evening meal, go to sleep about 10 and then in the morning get up and do it all over again. We have met some very nice people so far. One keeps meeting and remeeting them. It is always a pleasure.

I have only 9 minutes left before my money runs out on this machine so I will tell one Camino story and then hopefuly catch up with the rest and with Russia later.

On the second day of walking, I happened upon a young man speaking Russian to a woman just a little younger than me. So I stopped. He was from Oregon and had spent four years working in Kazakhstan and his Russian was good. She had walked from the Czech Republic and is on her way to Santiago de Compostela. She is protesting against the low pension given to older people in the Czech Republic. She gets about $400 a month. She speaks only Russian, German and Czech. I walked with her off and on. Her hip was bothering her. Eventually we came to Zubiri and there were no more beds. So we walked on with her to Larrosoana accompanied by two young Japanese men. One of them is a photographer and the other a magazine editor and they are hoping to do a picture book of the Camino. There were no beds in Larrosoana. I went into the hostel and tried to convince them to give her a bed but to no avail. We walked out and the Japanese photographer who had heard the story and did have a bed, gave her his bed. He and his friend slept outside. We met an Australian couple and shared a taxi to Huarte where there was a very nice hostel and we had a good night and a delicious pilgrim meal. I had a delicious tomato salad with very good onions. The city is known for them.

O.K. Time to pack.