Miles today: 18.7
Miles total: 324.4
Guess what?! We slept in! Guess how late? Until 6:00 in the morning! Six! That was amazing! The hostel we stayed at had the walls covered in words. Inspirational words, poems, stories and picture in all different languages! It was beautiful! I remember seeing one poem on the wall that depicted the the Camino wonderfully:
I tire of mouths-always moving,
I delight in the silence of the trees,
The unspoken contentment in the wise-mans face,
Loneliness follows me,
Makes home in my shadow.
But hope lives on within,
Makes home in my shadows,
For life is beautiful,
That I cannot forget.
That I cannot deny.
BUEN CAMINO
~ Peter Gross (8/5/2013)
This poem is so pretty. It shows the pain and serenity of the Camino, and yet the renown strength and promise it also holds.
After waking up and looking at my inspirational poem, we walked. And my luck ended quickly. I want to mention that I got pooped on two times in less than five minutes and not even ten minutes later I found new bird poop on my bag (except in Denmark being pooped on means luck... I don't want to know what their bad luck is).
We also wandered over the Puente de Orbigo, one of the the longest and oldest medieval bridges of Spain. This is the same bridge that overlooks the jousting arena of the knight who was renown for his skills, (he had a 300 match winning streak) in the novel of Don Quixote.
Today was so hot! We guessed near 90 degrees Fahrenheit, 35 degrees Celsius. We had hardly any shade and the heat sprang upon us around 10:00 in the morning, which is earlier in our walking day. This means we had to walk more than half of our day in dead heat and sweltering sun. We learned quickly that long breaks in the shade, drinking lots of water and wetting down our bandana's helped bring down the heat a little.
We also found a "Trail Angel" as a past pilgrim put it. This man (whose name I forget) sat on a hill in the ruins of a cathedral. He ran a donation cart full of wonderful food. It was full of fruit, juice, and other kind of food! Best of all he had shade and comfy seats. He called his home, "La Casa de Los Dioses." We learned that he had been living up here for five years and then March showed him a picture. This picture was the man and Auna Godinez hugging and smiling. It was Auna's birthday! I guess three years ago on this very day, March had made it to this mans cart and they too were blessed by this man's heart.
We arrived at the hostel near 4:30 because of the heat and it was nearly full. We got beds in the basement and the woman seemed concerned that we got these beds. Honestly, they are better than most! After arriving we showered and went out to eat. When we were eating we saw a class or three of high school age students walking by. It seemed like so many. We are guessing near 60 or so. They were stocking up on food. It will be fun to see them try to walk tomorrow.
Eventually we got exhausted from the heat so we came back and decided to use the laundromat to wash clothes instead. Turns out the 90 on the cycle doesn't mean 90 liters but 90 degrees. I now have purple panties instead of neon pink, and a a beautiful light grey sports bra instead of yellow. My sky blue socks have also been transformed to a blueberry color, but it is fine. I still have them.
Today was a good day. It was hot and slow, but it turned out to be just fine. Stress levels rose slightly as we became fatigued from the
heat, but never anything like the normal at home.
Hasta luego,
Mimi
Special thanks for the day go to:
Uncle Brad Anderson, Paul and Ruth Westlund, and Sandy and Daren Harmon.
Thanks as well to our mile sponsors:
Marla Hanser, Mark and Susan Dahl, Laust Søndergård Jensen,Carrie Mydouangchanh, Jeff and Holly Tomlin, and Ron Harmon.
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