Everyone at the hostel was really early this morning. I was the last out of bed, and that was up at 06:15. I took my time to pack my stuff, I was not in a rush since todays walk was only 19 km. I was at the streets before 7 and tried to find a place for coffee and breakfast, but without luck.
So I started to walk, and first enjoyed the view of the local church with two storch families with kids. What is it with storches that is so fascinating? In Denmark, it is written in the newspapers when a storch build a nest in top of a building. Here in Spain, most of the smaller cities have storch nests - and most often in the church towers. Storches must be very religious - but of course, they are the ones that deliver babies, so it makes sense to build a nest in a church.
So I did not get my morning coffee, and at the same time, it was raining, so I had my raining clothes on - happily rain stopped, and it got too warm after a couple of km, so I stopped and removed it. I had not studied the map good enough, so the morning break I had hoped for at 7 km, first showed up at 13 km. But as a good surprise, I met Mark from New Mexico, US, that I walked with for about an hour before the morning coffee. Mark nearly did a ”Buen Camino” on me - that is a joke we have in the Camino family, that when you pass someone that is slower than you, you say Buen Camino. It is a nice gesture, but in our group we have made it a joke among us to say it to each other with a smile, which means that ”I am faster than you”. And it is very rare that others are faster than me. Mark certainly was, and also older than me, but very fast. I caught up on speed, and we walked and talked and had breakfast together with Kelly, originally from Cameroon, and living in London now.
Mark had an interesting camino story. He started two days before me, but had to take a 6 days break due to infected blisters. And he decided that he did not want to use these days in average 12 degrees in Camino Spain, so he left for Tenerife to recover for the 6 days in the sun and warmth and came back to continue the camino. We had interesting discussions about blockchain, ai, purpose of walking, bicycling in Indonesia and central america and more. Mark wanted to go to Leon today - a 40 km walk, and I had planned only 19 km. When we arrived at my destination, I was tempted to continue with Mark and the conversation, but decided to stay since my body probably can use a bit of recovery and because I have already planned to stay two nights in Leon and meet the Camino Family. Perhaps I get time to do some reading today. I have had no time for that yet, and it is actually nice to have some additional time for doing nothing. Believe it or not, days are pretty intense when you walk long distances. The mornings are all about getting ready, and the afternoons and evenings is all about getting energy and getting to bed. Doors lock after 22, and there needs to be quite, so no late evenings out.
I arrived at the hostel already 11:30, and could not checkin before 13.
Hostel is really nice, and it has a nice restaurant where I am writing now after a 3 course lunch - First fresh boiled white asparagus, then chicken and fries, and finally ice cream. And as usual when ordering a pilgrims menu, you get a bottle of wine. Don’t worry, I don’t drink it all - just half of it :-)
I also took my daily selfie here - I have promised my daughter Ida to take a selfie each day to see the progress of my beard, and when I get home, she will compile a video of it. I have never not shaved for this long, and it will be interesting to see how the beard looks like when I arrive in Santiago. I might go for a trim there to make it stylish before returning home.
Before checking in to get my bed, I went through the town to look at it. The town is pretty small, and has an old wall surrounding it. And it has many hostel and banks for some reason. For the first time on the camino I used an ATM to get some cash. It is not all places that accept credit cards, so you need to have some cash on you, and the ones I brought from home is used now. At the ATM I met a couple from Brisbane Australia, and we talked about Steve Irving (Crocodile man) and his zoo and long traveling times from down under to Europe.
I am still in the restaurant writing, and just talked to a fellow pilgrem that has this amazing foldable keyboard - it could have saved me from bringing my Ipad and 1 kg, so I definitely need one of these.
Tomorrow will be a short 19 km walk again, and I will end up in Leon for two nights. I will meet Rachel aka Princess Camino and Colin again - and will meet Colins dad as a bonus, looking forward to that :-)