September 7, 2017

Day 6

I’ll start it with my gratitude to two work horses who take care of our night’s sleep and our breakfast! Considering our fun adventures in the large albergues, we decide to look for smaller and quieter ones. One can never know so we choose an albergue called St.Miguel. It’s a bit off the Road so we are hopeful for some quietness. We are greeted by two gentlemen – prototypes of Santa Claus. They offer us to take a seat and have some water. They only speak Spanish, but they use the newest technologies to communicate with the pilgrims – Google Voice Translator. Despite being tired, we laughed so much! The broken translations sounded something like ‘you donation give we, we you save bring light’. The gentlemen get confused  and apologise for perhaps choosing the wrong language. We are quick to calm them down by saying that we understood what they were trying to say and that we are very thankful for them taking care of us. They reward us with Santa Claus-like smiles. It’s nice that the fairy tale world still exists for adults too.

We start off early next morning, just past 5 am. Even being sleepy, I can feel the tempting smell of toasted bread –  Santas are preparing breakfast. Everyone is being cared for,  words of encouragement are being said here and there. It’s really lovely and sweet.

A wine fountain is a cherry on top! Who was saying that miracles don’t exist?! I take a sip from the palm of my hand, then splash my face (if we can bathe our feet in champagne, then we definitely can splash some wine on our faces). Tonight we are staying at Sonsol – a small, pleasant village, and the albergue has it’s own foot swimming pool. My, oh, my! My feet are over the moon! I think I safely say that the whole day has been a paradise.

We have dinner in a company of two wonderful ladies. Katerina, with her fireworks of a temper, and Anna, with her peaceful demeanour  and impossibly kind eyes, manage to break our ice of reticence. Our laughter is full of joy and happiness.

Day 7

The full moon is something to be counted with. I can definitely feel its effects. The morning starts with us getting lost, it’s dark, and the arrows are nowhere to be seen. We go in circles until we decide to walk along the motorway – that way it’s safe at least. We are joined by equally sleepy and lost pilgrims. An old saying goes ‘ the one who walks fastest and speaks loudest will become the leader’. In our case that leader is a fit middle-aged gentlemen who says he knows where to go, and keeps showing us directions with his poles. We arrange ourselves into a nice line and we follow him like chicks follow their mother. Now another saying goes ‘the one who speaks the loudest does not always know everything’. The gentleman has lost the path, but Laila notices on the map that the pedestrian path must be close to the motorway. And she is right. All we have to do is get over the roadside barriers and down the steep slope. However, that would be too much for my foot, so we split up. I try walking along the motorway. It’s ok. I guess the drivers must have gotten used to all sorts of weirdoes here.

It’s sort of a mission – to live close to the Way. It seems the locals see it that way too, they are sympathetic, polite and in the end of the day the pilgrims make an impressive contribution to the state budget. As the days pass, I find myself falling in love with Spain and its people. Never before has Spain appealed to me. Before coming here I knew some overall information about it, but all of it was somewhere far and unimportant. I must admit I am feeling a little ashamed of myself. When I get home, I’ll start exploring its history, but for the time being I am surrounded by green and blue vineyards, green lizards, mountains and cereal fields which, looking at them from the hill, look like ornaments in our own folk costumes. Yes, this is my serenade of love to this country, to its people who have helped this path to exist, who maintain it, who put up signs and show the way to those who are lost, who feed the pilgrims.

Tomorrow is going to be a day of grand adventure!