We arrived at the town of Hospital De Orbigo at around 2pm. Though the trek was only about 16 kms, we really walked more like 18 – 19 kms as we walked into this small city looking for our Albergue, Karl Leister. On this trek, I overtook Marybel and was ahead of her first time, on the camino. Two things contributed to this. My healing from last night worked and I was pain free. Second, Marybel was stricken with a knee pain on one of her legs and sole pain on her heels. She had to slow down today. As I looked back to see her walk, I felt sorry for her but was at the same time glad that I had at last overtaken someone on the Camino even if it was my best friend. What kind of a friend am I? I will have to make it up to her later with the reflexology I learned from the Healer from last night as it worked wonders for me.

To enter this city, we had to cross the Rio Orbigo on a medieval bridge. A part of the bridge is 700 years old and the extension of the bridge is around 300 years old. I walked on the old cobble stoned bridge and imagined ancient townfolk walking the same bridge as I did. Experiencing a bit of Spanish history while making my way into city centre.

Now, Marybel has an interesting perception on the Spanish people and their lifestyle which is a lot different from Colombia. She says the people here live like vampires. Towns and cities come alive only in the late evening and people do not start their day until 10 or 11 am in the morning. Ok, maybe semi-vampires as they do begin their day in daylight but they do not sleep until around 2am in the morning. Offices and schools do begin earlier in the morning but that is broken up with siesta at 2pm until 4 pm and children don’t return to school after siesta.

We reached our initial Albergue of choice as per our guide book at 3pm. Upon entering the bulding, I find that it is really old and in their term “parroquil”. Again the bathrooms and showers were outside and I did not relish going out to the washrooms in the middle of the night. I asked Marybel if we can look around for another place to stay and she agreed.

We walked a little down the street and I saw a sign that said Albergue Verde, 5 mins away. I found the Albergue and I almost could not believe the theme of this Albergue.

It is run by Velas and Miriam. Their friend owns the building and goes to India every year and stays six months in India and six months in Spain in Barcelona. They were given this opportunity to leave the stressful life of Barcelona and take care of their friend’s Albergueall year round. They grow their own vegetables and live a vegan lifestyle. The decoration throughout is very meditative and we were greeted by mantra chanting sounds playing in the background. The smell of incense lightly perfumed the room. The statue of Buddha was installed in the living room. One of the rooms is being renovated to be a yoga room.

This is an unexpected find on a catholic pilgrimage such as the Camino De Santiago. However, it is just right for me and it felt good to be here for the night. No decision needed to make this place my refuge for the night.

The cost for the night is $9 per person and Dinner is by Donation. They only serve vegetarian food.

They even place a quartz in their drinking water for ionization.

They have a rain shower in their bathroom. What a luxury with several jets all around.

Enough about the place, we went back to checking Marybel’s feet. She has the onset of a blister on her big toe and her heels are swollen. We were told to put sanitary pads in her shoes to cushion her heels for tommorrow. Miriam gave Marybel some of her own. We will see how this will work for tommorow’s trek. Our destination for tommorrow is Astorga. The length of the walk will mirror today but Astorga is a big city. We may walk several kms in the city just to find our Albergue like Leon. We will not know until tommorrow.

Despite the pain and physical exertion, I am enjoying this camino. I am wonderfully surprised everyday by something as the Camino unfolds to show me its sights and sounds. I am also surprised to find a Healer when I needed one the most. It also amazes me to find a refuge that resembles an ashram in how it operates and serve the pilgrims who choose to spend the night. Robert Adams did say “everything is an emanation of your mind”. I am starting to believe him as my mind is piercing the Camino and giving me some of my own projections.

I will end tonight’s blog with a saying from Dolly Parton, “when you want the rainbow, you have to put up with some rain” which has been quite apt for my camino thus far.

I left Leon at little past 9am after our buffet breakfast with bonus sandwiches for lunch. The objective today is to reach Villar de Mazarife and stay at the albergue San Antonio de Padua. Marybel left the hotel Pax at 10:30am. This was to give me a head start so that we may reach our destination at the same time. The challenge today is to find the right markers to Villar De Mazarife as we are taking an alternative route. We were told that our original destination Villadangos del paramour did not have any lodgings open at this time. It rained all day today so my rain pants and rain sheet came out.

I encountered some pain again on my left leg while walking on extremely muddy roads to Villar De Mazarife. Perhaps my mind is reminded of my fall in the mud on my first day and this pain is just asking that I be more careful while trekking through mud. My shoes became caked with mud and I used my walking stick to get some of it off when I walked on the country highway.

Marybel caught up with me at 2pm and we connected for a little while and then she walked on. I finally arrived at our albergue for the night at 4:20pm. This place included a physiotherapist who is also a healer as well. As I was in some pain, I decided to see if he can help. He massaged my leg and performed some reflexology. I felt so much better after the treatment. While he performed reflexology, I felt a pain leave me from my shoulder too. That was a great healing. Tommorrow he will advise me on how to take care of my knee. I felt quite good after, so Marybel decided to use his services too. He did not charge us a specific price but merely ask for a donation. Given how good I felt, I decided to pay him $10 each for our treatments.

We had our first vegetarian meal for tonight. The healer was also our cook. It was a gourmet vegetarian meal with a beautiful starter salad, followed by a vegetarian paella and ended with a chocolate drape crepe with strawberries.

He told us that he has done the camino many times and designed the meal according to what he liked to eat but could not find on the camino. He has walked 6000 kms combined on several caminos. I also suspect that because he is a healer, he also followed a vegetarian lifestyle but I did not ask him this night. I shall ask him tommorrow when I receive his counsel for my knee once again.

With a vegetarian meal in me for this night, I do believe I will have a peaceful night. Our dinner companions for this night are two Brits women, Megan and Sue, and young Madeline from New York. Megan and Sue are on their fifteen day and Sue is suffering from blisters on the soles of her feet. Madeline is a student and will be doing her post grad program this coming fall. This is the only largest time slot she will have in a while and thus she can do the camino now.

I had an onset of a small blister under one of my toes but due to quick tendering of the blister once I felt it, I have managed to put it at bay. I just placed a blister pad on it and it does not hurt anymore.

At dinner time, I found out that I have really done 25 kms today. I originally thought it was 20kms thereabout. I neglected to take into account that the alternative route is longer and that I had to walk 3kms from our hotel in the city of Leon to get out of Leon. Grand total of 25kms. This is the furthest distance I have done since starting my Camino and I did not do this purposefully. Ignorance is definitely bliss in this circumstance as I would not have taken this route all at once. I would have broken it up into two parts if I had known.

Well tommorow we will head out to the town of Hospital De Orbigo. It will be around 16 kms. I am not sure that I am able to repeat today’s efforts again, at least not for a few more days until I have built up more stamina.

I realized that my Camino seeks to surprise me at every turn. I found that I could walk 25kms in one day and when my leg pain came back, there was a healer at the end of the day’s journey who helped take care of it. I also realized that God also will give you only what you can handle. If you are not able, he will be there to help you out. I am truly blessed.

Good night my friends and family,
God bless!

Peace and love
Hilda 🙂

We woke up at the Benedictine nuns albergue without sleeping well during the night. Marybel was bitten by bedbugs on her back. I was lucky and did not experience the bugs like she did. We had to leave the albergue by 8am and if we wish to stay another night, we would need to return by 11am and reregister our names. A simple breakfast is provided of bread, jam, margarine and coffee. This place is run by volunteers and members of the clergy. All were extremely pleasant but Marybel will not spend another night here due to the bugs. We wanted to stay in Leon for another night to witness Palm Sunday celebrations and also to have a really good rest for the day.

The following is the best part, engineered by Marybel. There is a nice hospideria (hotel) next to the Albergue called Hospederia Pax. Like most hotels, you can only check in later in the afternoon. Marybel did her thing and got the reception to allow us to check in at 8am. That meant we leave the Albergue and go straight to the hotel without any waiting time. Cost for the night is $50 euros and we agreed to another $11 for breakfast buffet so that we may also obtain sandwiches for our lunches as well. That is two meals for only $11 for both of us. Great value!

We took advantage of the early check in and slept in the comfy beds with clean fresh smelling sheets until the late afternoon. We obviously needed this as both of us did not get much sleep in the Albergue.

I woke up and did not want to leave my bed as it was the most comfortable one I have been in since the start of the Camino. We just laid in beds until we got hungry and then went out to look for food.

Life in Leon only comes alive in the late evenings anyways. We can also take in the Palm Sunday procession which started at 9pm anyways and the procession route began at the Albergue , a bonus for us so we do not have to go anywhere else to view it.

Dinner was a combination of things. Churros from a churruteria, nuts from a street vendor, ice cream from a side street shop and finally Morcilla De Leon and some Calamares. Morcilla de Leon is a specialty here and is their version of blood pudding. They also serve a limonada, a sangria like drink for holy week. They do not make this special limonada at other times of the year. The drink is available at all bars until Easter only. Taste like sweet wine with fruit aroma. delicious.

After dinner, we returned to our hotel just in time to witness the procession. It is quite the serious affair as they prcession included carrying Jesus on a float that was very heavy. It required so many men carrying the float. I could not count how many but I will google this later to check. No engines or vehicles, just pure manpower swinging side steps as not to topple the precious statue on the float as per the tradition. Solemn music, trumpets and loud drums marked this procession. After Jesus, it was the Virgin Mary then it was the head clergy followed by rest of clergy members with people dressed in traditional spanish garbs holding crosses.

How lucky am I to be able to experience this Special Spanish Easter celebration? This sort of processions will go on until Easter with a different theme each night.

We returned to our room at around 10pm and the procession can still be heard with the loud drums and trumpets. Later, there was a choir singing hymms in Latin and spanish. I was still awake at 11 pm but did managed to have a peaceful rest despite the noise outside. It was quite a wonderful relaxing day. We took in the sights on the streets of Leon in the evening and even saw the Virgin Mary up close.

Tommorow we head out to Villar Del Mazarife and this is around 20 kms walk. I hope to make good time on this trek.

Hasta Manana!!

We caught the bus to Leon today. The only bus available is at 3:15 and it reaches Leon at 7:15 pm. Given that we do not have anywhere to go until that time except to an authentic olive vendor shop, we asked our kind hospitelera, Blanca if we could stay until 2 pm. She says no problem and even said we could leave our backpacks at the albergue while we shop for olives. She is the nicest and hardworking caretaker I have encountered so far. By the way the Albergue is call Puerta del Revellin. It has won an award for cleanliness and I can see that it is true, having stayed overnight here.

So after a breakfast of microwaved scrambled eggs with olive oil (as recommended by Blanca), bread and coffee, we went out looking for this olive vender. By the way I should mention that we slept-in this morning as there was nothing else to do except wait to catch the bus in the afternoon.

We found the olive shop not too far away from the Albergue. It was located in an indoor farmer’s market. Many vendors of all types: meat, fish, vegetables, fruits and of course, olives. We were allowed to sample the different kinds of olives there and settled on a couple of green fresh olives in garlic oil and herbs. I also got myself a small sampling bag of pickles and onions as it looked interesting. We bought a Spanish fruit for Blanca to thank her for her kindness but I don’t remember the name of it. Blanca mentioned last night that she like it. I will get Marybel to spell for me later. After this shopping affair, we went to the bus station and bought our bus tickets for Leon (just wanted to make sure that there were seats on this only bus to Leon for this day). Glad we did this as not many seats left on the bus.

We returned to the Albergue and rested a bit more. When 2pm came around, we don our backpacks, said our thank you’s to Blanca and headed out to the bus station.

We were quite surprised at what we encountered on route to the station. Just a block approaching the station, we encountered a group of people crowding and looking down on something. Lots of commotion and noise. As we reached the spot, we saw what they were concerned about. There was a woman lying unconscious on her side next to a SUV-like vehicle. The children inside were crying and another woman was on the phone calling emergency services. We had to stop on the street as a crowd was gathering to see what was going on and we ourselves were curious as well. We can see a very upset man and was told by some people in the crowd that this was the unfortunate woman’s husband. The police and ambulance arrived. The EMTs took the woman into the van but did not take her straight to the hospital. I saw that they were performing CPR on her inside the ambulance. After another 5 mins the ambulance left for the hospital. Marybel obtained the whole scoop on this incident. The woman fell to the ground after opening her car door to leave her car. She just dropped without warning. She is around thirty something years old and her two children were still in the car when this happened. She must have suffered a heart attack or an aneurysm. When the EMTs worked on her, they managed to revive a slight pulse but they commented “we got a pulse but it is weak. She is more on the other side than here.”

I learned a very big lesson here in this moment: you are not assured of your next moment.

Anyone of us can literally drop dead anytime just like this poor woman we came upon. It really gives me food for thought. So I say to all of you, please kindly forgive me for all my transgressions against you and I wish you all well. If my next breath does not come like this woman, at least I have left with a clean slate. Yes, I also want to say that I love you all and thank you for all that you have done for me. Now if god should claim me, I can go in peace. That’s it for the serious stuff.

We reached the Albergue run by Benedictine nuns and priests at around 8pm. $5 per person and it was quite filled up. No blankets provided so my sleeping bag is my life saver and Marybel had her travel blanket and liner. We had a simple meal of fruit, ham, bread and of course the stars of our meal were the olives we bought earlier. We sat at a full dinner table and our other peregrines (a family) were decorating a cake and shared a piece of the freshest chocolate cake. This family of pilgrims also shared a family tradition where they tied a decorative string around one of their wrists. They make a wish on it and wear it on the camino to take to the Compostela de Santiago. Then they release it there hoping that St James will grant their wish. I am honored that they gave me one and helped tie it around my wrist. My wish is that all who reads this today make a wish in their hearts and place it mentally on my wrist band to take to Compostela de Santiago. I shall carry all of your most heartfelt desires and place them at the feet of St James. I also ask my sister Jen to make her prayer (you know what you need)in earnestness place it with me. I shall definitely bring it to this revered saint for you.

Two events for me today and I did not even walk on the camino path. A Near death situation and a lively family celebration. Both held much importance to the people going through them. Both sides of the same coin called life. Again, the camino is fluid and free flowing. Spontaneous happenings are its calling cards. It feels like it is telling me, “Leave the walk to me and I may show you more. You walk the camino even if you are not physically on it”

I thought this was to be a laid back day but as it turned out it was not.

Please do not forget to make a wish on my colorful wrist band. I shall bring it to St.James for you.

I will lay me to sleep this night and wish you all a most wonderful day for tommorrow.

Love and peace
Hilda 🙂

It has now been a whole week without a real break. We walked to Logrono today. Even though the trek is only 10 kms from Viana, Logrono is the capital city of La Rioja region. We still have to walk quite a distance to our Albergue. Upon entering the city at around noon, we found that we have time to research where the main city bus station is. We want to take a bus to the city of Leon and take a break from walking for one day. Marybel is now starting to hurt all over. Her legs hurt, her neck hurts and even her ass hurts. At times like this, I start questioning why I am doing this. The Camino is not easy and it does take its toll on everyone sooner or later. I enjoy some aspects of the Camino and hate the others. No answer appeared to me as to my question so I will continue until I get to the Compostela De Santiago.

Though no answer came, there is some comfort on this leg of my journey. I came upon a flyer advertising a newly opened Chinese Buffet in logrono. I must be feeling homesick and I know from my past, Chinese food can set things right even if only for a short spell. We took the flyer and set off for a late lunch for $8.50 each.

God must know me well. It was a great buffet with premium ingredients such as sword clams, snails, big lagostinos, big shiitake mushrooms,etc. You get the picture. Another excellent restaurant with great food for a decent price. All thoughts of pain and suffering went out the window for me. See how quickly things can change for me and it simply took great food to make everything all right. I realized that I am a very basic simple person and little things can make me happy quite easily. What a simple woman I am…lol

I bought the scallop shell today for my backpack. I look like a peregrino at last.

I have also uploaded a few pictures but due to time limitation, unable to upload too many. I shall endeavor to provide pictures, a few at a time so that you can see the exhausted and unkept pilgrim that I have become. No makeup and sometimes I even forget to brush my hair. At least I shower and brush my teeth and have clean clothes to wear everyday. That appears to be the luxury here aside from food and new acquaintances.

Now, back to my slow pace. I have not physically passed a pilgrim yet unless snails on the road counts. Everyone I have met walk faster than me even white haired men and women, presumably of retired age. What does that say about me? I know that it is not a race but I do want to sprint a little faster sometime along the Camino. It may happen yet. We will have to see.

It is currently raining in Logrono on the first day of spring. I have been told that most people start walking the Camino tomorrow in this country to prepare for Easter next week. I can expect to see more pilgrims on the road next week. On Good Friday, all shops will be closed so I will have to prepare to land somewhere decent as I may have to stay for two days and then start again. It also means that I will have two breaks in a week due to Easter. This is not certain but I will keep that as an option. It seems strange to be celebrating Easter away from home and in a country where Easter is more important than Christmas. It will definitely be a new experience for me. I am looking forward to Easter celebrations here. Most of the Main Squares of towns have begun building scadfolds to hold Easter decorations. You can definitely feel the busyness and excitement for holy week ahead.

Tonight, I hope to rest well and tomorrow we take the bus to Leon at 3:15pm and will arrive at 7:25 pm. Once there we will search for our albergue much like what we did in Pamplona.

The start of this trek will be exciting as we will be closer to our final destination though we still have many more kms to go. For me now, it is not the time and distance anymore but what and where the next day will bring us.

Through all of this, I have been lucky to have someone or something looking after me. Some examples: I drop my fleece scarf today onthe camino and a kind cyclist returned it to me though he did not see me drop it but he deduced that it was mine as he cycled up to me. The hospitaleria (caretaker of the albergue) helped dry our clothes today out of the kindness of her heart. She just saw how tired we were when we washed our clothes. She took it upon herself to dry them when we went out to lunch. She saved us the dryer fees as she hung them so neatly to dry on pegs around our beds.

We have been blessed with kindness all throughout the camino. The above are only a couple of examples for today. As I write these words, my answer came to me. Why am I doing this? To see the manifestation of God in the many faces of the people I meet on the Camino. It does not need to get better than this. In turn, I ask to be a manifestation of God in action for the faces I encounter in my life.

This is my Camino, Calgary.

Till my next encounter with God,
Take care, my friends and family.
Peace and love,
Hilda 🙂

We looked over our guide once again and it warns of hard climbs and descents on the next trek from Torres Del Rio to Viana. Marybel has been speaking with some people who mentioned that perhaps we should skip this part as it will be really hard on the legs and if we are hurting, it can get worse. Decision time again. Looking at the guide, we see that there is a peregrino highway for the disabled. We can walk on this highway unlike the first Highway where we almost got a ticket. I was so undecided as to what to do that I really waivered between the two paths until the last minute. I was feeling better but I did not know what to expect as this trek was only going to be 2 1/2 hours for the fit and sturdy. Marybel expressed that I have to work on my ficklemindedness. I agree.

On our way out of Torres Del Rio, we came upon a truck selling fruit, fish, meat much like a market on wheels. The truck driver goes from town to town selling the items out of his truck. I took some pictures and will upload this later. He sold me fresh strawberries so intense in flavour for $1.85 for half a kilo. This is the Spanish life where you get the freshest of food from farm to table. I could live like this. No Spanish fat people here as food is highly nutritious and people don’t overeat. They do drink lots of wine though.

At the very last minute, I decided we take the Highway as my knee acted up again upon leaving Torres Del Rio. It was a good decision as we viewed the Camino route from the Highway as they run paralel in some parts. We could see how difficult the route was and was thanking God that we did not take it. Very hilly with steep upclimbs and declines.

We reached Viana at around 2pm at the Albergue Izar. This is a new Albergue and has free wifi with the fee of $8 per person. That is why I am able to provide an update this night. I informed Marybel that I did not want to have a heavy dinner every night just before going to bed. I suffered two heartburns two nights before and had a small nightmare last night. I am chaulking them to the heavy meals and very strong Spanish wine prior to settling in for the night.

So this time around we both decided to have our biggest meals of the day during lunch or Almuerzo (spanish mid day meal). We started this today at a restaurant recommended by the caretaker of this Albergue. What a great recommendation! It was a classy restaurant with white table linen service. The menu de dia is still only $10. We had Carne Lasagne, Secreto plancha (pan fried Beef fillet of the day with fries) and a chocolate torte for dessert. I have to mention the following at this stage. I have saved us from Marybel’s decisions for meals for yesterday and today. Both times, she just wanted to eat at the first restaurant that is on our path and both times, I encourage her to not do it and just walk a bit further to see what is available. Even today, after having been given a recommendation that was a bit further away, she wanted to have her meal at the first Taverna on the same street. Well, I am glad that she gives in to my suasion as this midday meal was excellent at a great decent price. 5 star European meal at 2 star price. Who could ask for more. The wine was so good that we finished the whole bottle and ended up drunk for the first time on the Camino. We also reunited with Craig Gill who was having lunch with two other guys. Craig won’t be staying overnight in Viana and will go onto Logrono for tonight. We asked to meet up with him tomorrow if he was still around just to hang out as he is quite fun and extremely sociable. Exchanged phone numbers and will see if we can do this.

I was quite dizzy when we returned to the Albergue so I took a snooze for a couple of hours. Marybel experienced a painful headache and did almost the same with a couple of tylenols. After the much needed nap, the camino routine began once again with showering and tending to bodily hurts and needs. Same old, same old.

Met another two new pilgrims for this night, a japanese man named FuKudome and a Spanish retiree, Pepe. They will be sharing the room with us in our assigned dormitories. Nice older men.

My thought for today is expectations are useless on the Camino. It holds surprises in every corner. You have no control over anything. You can only make decisions when situations are presented to you in the moment. Life on the Camino can change quite quickly and will make no apologies for doing so. Definitely have to go with the flow in order to align yourself with it.

Hey, for those of you following my blog, can you please enter your email on the “follow the blog widget” so that I know who is reading please. So far, thank you Theresa, Maria, Carol and of course my brother. Send me comments and questions so that I may make this blog more interesting for me and you.

Hasta Luego once again!! Muchismo Gracias!!

We left Villamayor at 8:45 am. We’ve learned to stretch properly prior to starting our trek. The objective for today is to reach Torres Del Rio. The trek will be approximately 20kms today. The knee is hurting still but not as bad due to the anti-inflammitories I am taking. Going downhill is still a challenge. Thank goodness it is not hilly on this trek. On this walk, I met Jason from California who started from St.Jean. He is 31 years old, fit and he says that he is also hurting all over. It is his sixth day on the Camino. I am embarrassed to tell him that it is only my fifth day and I started from Pamplona. I told him that I am close to being an old woman and so have to operate this way….lol. He is very kind and said that I look much younger for my age of 44 years. What a sweet guy!!

Marybel reached Torres Del Rio at 1:30pm. I took my time and reached the small town at 4pm. I had many stops on the way, admiring the scenery filled with olive trees and green rolling hills. It was also a cool day with no rain.

Torres Del Rio is a town of elevated streets. They go up and down all over. Our Albergue is an old one called Casa Mari. $7 per person. Given our wonderful experience in Villamayor, this was a let down.
The beds were questionable in terms of cleanliness. The room was also quite cold. I slept in the sleeping bag on top of the bed just so I was warm. Marybel tripled up on the blankets. Here is the part I hated most of all. The toilets, shower rooms were located outside of the Albergue. I made sure I did not need to go in the middle of the night as I did not want to go to the toilet at latenight or early morning hours. I was not brave enough to venture out of the Albergue in the cold night air.

Dinner was wonderful this night at Casa LILI. Yes, a restaurant having the same spelling as my cousin’s name. I took a picture for you, Lili. we had a chuluton for the main, akin to the T-bone Steak and potatoe salad for the primero (first course). Dessert was a sweet tiramisu like cake. The wine is from the Rioja region and I did not like it much for it had a bitter afternote. However, I am told that it is famous here.

Remeber Colleen, she was having dinner at the same restaurant. She told us of a mother and two young girls, not greater than 9 years of age doing the Camino. Quite the story as they began at St Jean. The girls also started outdoor physical sports when they were toddlers. You get all types of people on the Camino. Colleen also advised us of a store keeper who advised her to take it slow for the first few days. She has seen many people who pushed themselves and getting hurt too quickly. Also in the peak season, she has seen women coming into the store with black eyes from having fallen on the path.

Yes, you definitely have to be quite careful on the Camino as you can get hurt from just missing a step and rolling on the path instead.

My Camino has changed from inner reflection to meeting people and trying out new foods. I shall attempt to get back to my walking meditation soon but for now, this is more fun.

A toast to the Camino for this leg of the journey!!

Got up at 8am this morning. Experienced a slight heartburn in the night, must be the heavy food and the strong wine. Lucky that I brought Zantac with me so the heartburn did go away leaving me to sleep well the rest of the night.

We are still doing the backpack taxi as I am still hurting though not as much as yesterday. We decided to get a small shoulder bag to carry some lunch and water. We bought a small shoulder backpack at a sports store a few kms prior to leaving Estela. It fit our needs well. Got some fruit, bread and yogurt. After a few much needed stretches, we continued on the path of the camino. As the camino dictates, you do not know where you are going but you look for the signs on the way. The signs are the Camino Shell and the yellow arrows. They are well marked and visible for now. I have not heard of anyone getting lost just yet but I am sure there must be plenty of stories on that item.

Just before leaving Estela completely, we came upon the famous Wine Fountain, Fuente de Vino. You can drink at the wine fountain for free. The fountain has two taps, one for wine and the other for water. The custom is to take the wine in your scallop shell and sip from it. There is a camera on the fountain to prohibit people from abusing this priviledge. When we got to the fountain, a local walking his dog put his face beneath the wine tap and opened the tap and let the wine flow into his mouth. He must be doing this often as he seemed quite the expert at this without touching his lips to the tap. I have not bought my scallop shell for my bag yet. So I did the following instead. Marybel had finished her yogurt so we washed out her yogurt cup with water and then filled it with wine. Both of us drank for this cup instead of the customary shell. Once again, a most delicious wine. I am getting to be quite the wine drinker. When we drank this wine, it is in the morning….wine for right after breakfast…lol. I took a picture of this and will see if I have the opportunity to upload this later.

We continued on our journey…as usual…Marybel walks ahead of me. I did not tell Marybel this but Craig from Scotland said yesterday without Marybel around as I told him that I might be slowing Marybel down with my snail pace. He said that perhaps I did not need to speed up but Marybel may need to slow down instead. After all, a lot of people do the Camino for self reflection and slowing down benefits this inner quest of the Camino. I also believe that each person do their own camino in their own pace. I have mine and Marybel has hers.

We reached the town of Villamajor de Monjardin. I arrived at 2.30pm and Marybel arrived only 40 mins earlier. The Albergue of choice here is the Villamayor de Monjardin Albergue. It is very new, having only opened for 3 weeks. What a wonderful albergue!

We were starving and had only some bread and pate to eat. The caretaker of the albergue provided more bread and some salami to make up the rest of our meal for free. The albergue has kitchen facilities so that you can cook if you wanted to. The town´s mercado is not open. Marybel wanted to buy some eggs for breakfast tommorrow and this objective cannot be accomplished without a grocery store nearby. This is what the owner of the albergue did. He got 6 fresh eggs from home and gave them to us, once again for free. Even though breakfast is provided, it is pastries and coffee. We now have something extra that others will not have, fried eggs for breakfast for tommorrow due the generosity of the owner of the albergue, Javier. I cannot say enough how this albergue is the best that I have stayed in, even if it has only been 4 days on the Camino. Great service and offerings for only $15 per person.

The pilgrims for this night is a retired man from Britain, Colleen from San Francisco and an Irish couple, I did not get their names. We did not have an opportunity to find out more about them as we got busy getting laundry done. Dinner was passable in a nearby bar for $10 euros, pasta, turkey and fries and oranges for dessert. Having kitchen facilities is not good when there is not grocery store nearby to get supplies for a decent meal so the pilgrim´s menu is prime for moments like this.

The view from our room is fantastic overlooking the Spanish farms and vineyards. Did I mention? What an amazing albergue!!!

Internet is free here so I am able to provide an update of four days on the camino. I do not know what is available over the next few days. I promise that I will try to do as much as possible when I have access.

I have to wake up early tommorrow morning to cook us eggs. Tommorrow, we go to Torres Del Rio. This trek will be 19.9 kms. I am taking a challenge of a longer trek as the trek appears to be easy with no ascends and descends, just straight walking on level country roads. Let´s see what happens. I will keep a log and advise you guys later.

Hasta Luego!!

We left Cirauqui at around 10 am after breakfast of again eggs and bread. I find that fueling up properly prior to walking helps a lot. We will do about 14 kms today passing Lorca and Villatuerta. This is suppose to be an easy trek. As I am still new to the Camino, I need it to be easy as the first day was very hard.

We had lunch in the town of Lorca of bread, pate and small pizza which we had purchased earlier in Cirauqui. We purchased coffee from a machine as nothing was open in this town. We shared our small pizza with a woman pilgrim from Mexico.

There was a stretch on this trek where we had to go downhill. I still had problem with my left leg. Going uphill is no problem, just going down. I managed slowly with my walking stick. I really mean very slowly. On my way down the hill, I met Tara and Linda from Jacksonville, Florida. Linda also suffered an injury to her knee area. She suggested that I obtain a knee brace from the pharmacy.

Marybel arrived in Estela at 3.30 pm and I arrived an hour half later. I hurt all over. Our beds were on the third floor of the Municipal Albergue. I believe at this stage, the stairs were the hardest climb for the day…lol. Marybel poked me in the butt cheek area and I hurt there too. I laughed as I did not know there are areas of me hurting as I did not feel them until they were touched or in my case, poked.

After I took a most refreshing shower in a unisex shower room, I felt like a new woman. Here is the interesting part of the shower. I obviously was enjoying the shower and made some unbecoming noises. Marybel made a comment that it sounded like I was having sex in the shower….No such luck!! I probably made relief sounds massaging my hurt muscles as I scrubbed myself clean and hard.

We walked the town of Estela and it is like walking Banff with its quaint personality and tiny shops. We visited a couple of pharmacies to see if I can get a knee brace. The second pharmacist said that I did not need one as I did not hurt my knee. He said just to take some anti-inflammatories on a consistent basis over the next few days and I will be fine. He said that if I injured my knee, I would not be able to walk as easily as he had seen me walk into his pharmacy. That is good news.

We found a restaurant near the albergue and enjoyed a most delicious dinner. Spanish Paella, garbazo soup, pan fried chicken with fries and fresh strawberries with fresh cream for dessert. I have to say that Marybel and I have been sharing one order for all of our meals. It is enough as the meals are hearty and can feed two people well. Thank goodness for this. I cannot imagine eating a heavy dinner just before going to sleep. I do not know how the other people are doing it. Oh, I need to mention that we got to take our whole bottle of wine with us as we only finished half. Yes, the menu included a whole bottle of wine and if we had finished this bottle, a new bottle would have been opened for us. The Spanish people love their wine.

I found out this tidbit of information for you guys out there who might do this one day. There is a physio therapist at the Estela Municipal Albergue who treats hurt peregrinos for free. I was tempted to visit him but I did not hurt as much as another peregrino who experienced a shin splint. Thus, I did not want to waste the therapist precious time as he is needed to treat others who really required his services.

This is the first night that the ear plugs came out. The snoring in the dormitory was akin to a quoir (forgive me if I spelled this wrong). In unison, it sounded like a performance. Too bad, the people who performed did not get to experience their talents as they slept soundly. Trust me, a short performance is enough just for the hilarity of the situation. The ear plugs are a must for a good night´s rest.

What an incredible day as well!

We left Uterga at around 9:30 am, reaching Muruzabal for breakfast at the Los Nagales restaurant and bar. Eggs and ham with bread & coffee. The trek was easy until Puente La Reina. That was when I experienced an incredible pain in my left leg (possibly due to the fall from yesterday). I limped into Puente La Reina. Given the pain, we looked for tylenol as I packed mine in the backpack and had none with me. The pharmacies were closed this day.

I managed to buy a walking stick to help me walk so that I am not leaning on my left leg too much. As we were leaving Puente La Reina, a local old couple encountered us. They told us of a land slide on the camino after Puente La Reina and advised us to walk the highway instead as it was dangerous. Our objective was to reach Cirauqui for the albergue Maralotx this night.

So we took their advice and walked the highway instead. Here´s what happened though. We were about ten minutes away from Cirauqui when a cop car flashed lights and stopped us. Two cops came out of the car and began questioning Marybel as she was the one who spoke fluent spanish. They told us that we are not supposed to walk this highway and we were going to get a fine for doing this. It was also a heavy find of $300 Euros per person. Marybel told them that if we got tickets for this, our camino will be finished there and then as we cannot afford to complete the camino with a substantial budget being cut due to this misunderstanding of spanish laws regarding the highway. Hooray for Marybel! She talked the cops out of giving us the tickets. One of them then walked with us to the entrance of the town of Cirauqui and also recorded our passport information. He told us not to do this again and will let us go this time. I believe that pilgrims must hold a special place in this culture and he might not have wanted to upset God too much by stopping pilgrims from completing an important pilgrimage. Thank you Lord!

On reaching Cirauqui, a local spanish woman recognising us pilgrims was incredibly helpful and kind. Maralotx is situated up on top of a hill so we had to walk a steep road to the albergue. She saw how tired I was and grabbed my hand and provided steady support right up to the albergue. I mean ÁLL THE WAY!! This is where I truly know how kind God is and how he loves us so. If only we see each moment as such. She gave us kisses and wished us ¨Buen Camino¨and hope that we have a pleasant journey.

We reached Cirauqui and met up with Craig again. We also met Mirabel, a seventy one year old woman performing the camino. What a strong woman for her age. There was also Engolf and his son, Lassi (pronounced Lasso) from Germany. This was our family for this night´s dinner. We shared stories, spinach soup, pasta with bolognese and a custard dessert. Oh, let´s not forget delicious spanish red wine. I am getting used to drinking wine with each meal.