We're learning about the rhythms of life on Spain, and one of them is that nothing is open on Sundays. So, we bought food last night for today, and Keith carried it until we stopped in the first town. His backpack was so heavy that he decided to go ahead of me and wait so he could carry it less time. The attached picture is what he looked like when I found him. He'd been there for 20 minutes.
The picture of me is relatively early in the day. My hands are inside of my poncho in the pockets of my pants to try to stay warm. Warm hands means a happier pilgrim. You can see the condition of the road behind me, which is much better than anything we saw the first two days even though it's not very good. The surface is more like sand than mud, and the water isn't nearly as deep. We both have dry shoes today, even after all of the rain.
Keith added up five of our ten days having rain, and two of them have been warm and sunny. That's not what we prepared for, but we are here. Now that we've covered so much ground, we're starting to feel a little proud of ourselves. Ten different beds, ten different showers, and roughly 150 miles. Nothing can be described as routine at all! We have come to think of our plans as only one option among many!
Last night, we ate our first hostel dinner, which we made with three other pilgrims. A bunch of people elected to cook in our hostel last night, so the dishes and pans were a rare commodity. As they finished and washed, we grabbed and ate. We drank our wine out of tall plastic cups... nothing close to proper wine glasses! We loved our dinner! Pasta, which was leftover from another group, chopped onions and red peppers, sausage, tomato sauce, cheese from another group, and a little touch of meat sauce from another group. We also had bread and green olives, with the pits, on the side. We'll be glad to have another hostel dinner when we get an invitation!
I've made a decision about my sore feet-- I'm going to buy shoe inserts tomorrow. In fact, a guy from England we walked with for a while a few days ago came up beside us today and told us he heard about my sore feet from other pilgrims we know from Ireland. Word certainly gets around the Camino! He told me he heard that I don't have inserts in my shoes, and he was shocked! I said they didn't bother me in our training at home, so I didn't think I needed them. He understood, but he still told me to get some. What he didn't know is that two guys from Spain found heel inserts yesterday for one euro and bought them for me! I walked on those today, and that is what made me decide that full length inserts can't hurt. We can't get them today because the pharmacy is closed, but we'll buy them tomorrow either before we leave town or in a town halfway to our destination. At the worst, we'll get them in Burgos in two days.
On the Camino, people give a lot of advice. You take what you want and ignore the rest. I've learned to tell the difference in how Keith talks when he's actually going to follow someone's advice and when he is just being polite by listening to them say crazy things that we would never follow. My feet have gotten us lots of suggestions, so I'll let folks know what works when I figure it out.
We've been at our hostel for three hours already, and no one else had come into our room to stay tonight. There are others here, but they are in different rooms. We're not sure if this place has a bad reputation or if it's in a less-than-ideal location or something else, but we're happy with our stay so far. If our clothes dry tonight, we'll call this a success-- if not, we might throw them in the dryer in the morning just to make life a lot simpler.
We hope you stayed drier than we did today!
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