Alternative title: The Rain in Spain Falls mainly on the Heads of Pilgrims

The kilometers are beginning to melt away with surprising speed, especially given the weather conditions the last few day. The last three kilometers to Hontanas today was a literal slog, the onomatopia if that word I never really appreciated until this moment. That’s what every step sounded like, the gentle descent into the gelatinous mud the subtle – sl-, the lifting of each foot a hard g of effort. The weather is also my excuse for a lack of photos from the last couple of days, driving hail and gusts of wind up to 60km/h are not conducive to pilgrimly activities like walking and photo taking. Thankfully, cresting the plateau of the meseta seems to have left the worst of the weather behind. Besides some Seattleish scattered showers, today remained thankfully overcast.

My spirit actually remains fairly intact at this point, broken neither by the long distance or driving winds. We’ll have to see if this remains the same with the monotony of the meseta in my near future. I’ve already heard multiple times that the next few days are the ones to skip, if you are going to skip anything at all. The Camino runs straight through flat farmland for several days, there is relief neither for the body for the sun nor the mind from the plain continuance of the ground.

Friendship is a thing that is not lacking on the Camino. We all have such a large shared experience, that conversation comes easily. While there is a tendency for injury to replace personality (I’ve walked with people for several days without being able to tell you more than their name and what country they’re from, while able to give you a detailed description of every cut, scrape, lesion and blister they’ve recieved in the last few days) making friends is easy. I’ve spent the last few days walking with a motley crew of fellow pilgrims. A digest:

  • Nico: Italian engineer turned vagabond
  • Eric: German tank captain and adjutant
  • Xindi: New Zealand computer science student
  • Alla: Moldovan tour guide

Needless to say, conversations amongst our little Camino family have been interesting.