Camino De Santiago: Day 19 Villar de Mazarife-Astorga

It took me a little while to pull myself out of my sleeping bag the morning of day 19. It was officially the coldest night of the Camino. I didn't realize it at the time, but the reason I had the dorm room to myself was because the side of the hostel I was on was the old part of the hostel...there was no heat. A high price to pay for no snoring. 

I really had no reason to hurry though. Every evening most pilgrims would get together and discuss the next day's trail. Any way I counted it, it looked like going all the way to Astorga was going to be 30 km or more (20 miles or so). I had sworn off those kind of long days once I hobbled my way into Leon, but Camino friend Juanma assured me that it was only 21 kilometers or so to Astorga. I was dubious, but then again, he had done a lot of research on the Camino and had been right on just about everything so far. So to Astorga it was!

I had a leisurely coffee with hostel owner Jesus and was on my way to what I was hoping would be a fairly short day. 

I passed lots of fields--stripped corn fields, and these, which I thought were potatoes, but turned out to be beets. 

I found a lost glove. It didn't belong to the ladies in front of me and we figured it was a biker long ahead of us. I decided to put it on top of my walking stick and see if its owner would turn up. A little bit later I was talking to a Korean girl when she looked over and said--that's my glove!

Snack time by the river (I was very careful not to let my bag/stick/self fall into the water!)

The trail got quite confusing around Hospital de Orbigo. There were lots of arrows pointing one direction and then other arrows that had been blacked out pointing down this way. One of the worst things you can do on the Camino is get lost. Walking extra kilometers is physically exhausting, but the mental pain you feel knowing you are wasting energy when you are so tired is acute. I stood around looking lost, unable to make up my mind over which path to take, when I noticed an official blue Camino sign far in the distance. 

Luckily this path took me right into Hospital and took me over their old bridge (considered a Camino must...even if it was under construction). The bridge was under construction, and, in places, it was just wide enough for one person. Because my ankle was bothering me so much, I was shuffling so slow that I had to stop and let old people hauling groceries pass me. I was gaining a growing appreciation for tortoises. 

I was out of town before I knew it. There weren't any cafes on that side of town and I was way too tired to double back into town and find one. I figured that if Astorga was indeed only 20 or so km from Villar de Mazarife I was getting close and could just eat there. (This of course, was a huge mistake.) I sat down on a bench outside an old ladies house. (She walked by and said hello. I was really hoping she would invite me in for lunch...but no such luck.) I dug in my bag--what did I have in there that I could eat for lunch? A tomato and a cereal bar.  

Outside of town I ran into this grandpa. He stopped and chatted with me for a long time. He had picked some daffodils to take to his wife. 

By this point in the day I was realizing that my dear friend Juanma was wrong about it being a short day.  I had already hiked more than 20km and Astorga was no where in sight. To distract myself/make myself feel better I resorted to kicking dandelions and whacking them with my stick as I walked. 

I was starting to go to the crazy place. 

By this point I had arrived to the crazy place. I was pulling out all the tricks I could think of--I put on my headphones and listened to upbeat/oldschool jams. I danced my way down the street (there was no one in sight anyway. Although, not like I cared at that point!). I was so hungry and thirsty and each step was shooting flaming arrows of pain through my ankle. 

I got to this point of the trail--shuffling across multiple lanes of traffic is scary!--and sat down at a shaded bus stop. I literally could not go another step. I stepped into problem solving mode and started digging through my pack. There must be something in here that I can do something with.

I found the athletic tape I had bought to bandage my blisters and channeled my inner athletic trainer. Playing basketball in high school I had my ankle taped all the time, so I tried to channel some of that and just started taping where it hurt. 

Surprise of surprises, it worked! It looked like a bad paper mâché project, but I could walk again!

And then, a few kilometers beyond that, I saw a mirage in the distance. I tried not to get my hopes up, but with a shout of joy I realized my eyes were indeed not fooling me--it was a GAS STATION. Have I ever been so happy to see a gas station? No. 

I must have been looking ROUGH because the guy there offered to find me a chair to sit in. I drank down a gatorade, had a stale ham sandwich and felt 72 times better. I still had a long way to go, but I finally felt like making it to Astorga was a possibility. 

Astorga! So close...yet still so far. 

We climbed over the bridge, circled in to town and then faced a ridiculous obstacle. We had to cross train tracks. We couldn't just walk over the tracks though. We had to climb up a giant set of stairs to a platform over the tracks and then climb directly back down on the other side of the track. Up two flights of stairs. Down two flights of stairs. So much energy need to go a whopping total of about 5 feet. 

Then, there was of course another large hill to climb to get into the city. There were a couple of grandpas sitting at the top of the hill kind of taunting us, telling us the hill wasn't that big. They had no idea what they were talking about!

Finally, finally to the lovely city of Astorga. 

The Albergue was beautiful though. I have a caretaker of severly handicapped men to thank for directing me here. I was planning on going to another hostel in town, but he was sitting outside with his patients and told me this was by far the best hostel in town. He was correct. 

I decided to take some more advice. I was finally ready to "thread"one of my blisters (you use a needle and thread to run a string through your blister and then you leave it in there so that it can drain and heal). It sounds barbaric and I resisted...up until a point. I told some of my pilgrim friends I was going to give it a go over dinner, and their response? Can we watch? Only on the Camino...

The view over Astorga. (I've never done laundry with a view like this!) And let me tell you, after such a long-hot-crazy-painful day it looked pretty sublime. 

Oh, and the total kilometer count for the day? 31. 

Camino De Santiago: Day 18 Leon-Villar de Mazarife

I WILL get through these Camino posts! My memories are already seeping out of my brain, so I'm gonna get on it!

(Last Camino post was here.)

After a skipping the suburbs of Leon to make the Easter celebrations and a rest day on Monday to take in the sights of Leon, I was feeling ready to hit the trail early Tuesday morning. For our rest day in the hostel we found out that the Benedictine nuns who run the hostel also rent out a handful private rooms. A few of us scooped them up and lived in what seemed like perfect luxury (towels! sheets! a door that separated me from the hundred in the next room!). I slept like a baby, the swelling in my ankle had gone down considerably and in this strange restlessness that hits you on the Camino, when I woke up on Tuesday I was ready to get to hiking again. 

I was also starting (what was in my mind) the last third of my Camino with a new resolve to not walk more than 20 km or so a day and to take care of my feet--hurrying through the wet Meseta resulted in numerous blisters, which, let me tell you, were GAMECHANGERS. So 20 km a day was the goal. No need to hurry. No more than 25. Or so I thought.

Leaving Leon I bid San Isidoro--looking lovely in the morning light--goodbye.

I also stopped to snoop around in the Convent of San Marcos, which is now a Parador (government run fancy hotel). 

Outside they had a pilgrim statue. I stopped to take pictures for the French women who were standing around it and chatted for a while. I definitely resonated with this pilgrim taking off his shoes... 

...and resting in the sunshine. By day 18, I knew that feeling well. 

I threw the concierge a nice smile and he let me have a little look inside the monastery. It is hard to wrap your mind around the fact that they allow you to sleep in these places. I was pretty taken with San Marcos. 

The ceiling of the monastery/parador

On the trail again! Oh how I love those arrows!

Just outside of Leon were these little houses built into the ground. I thought they might be some kind of cellars, but I think they were actual houses. Anyone want to enlighten me on these?

For some reason I told myself that Leon was the end of the Meseta. I don't know where I came up with that, but it isn't true. The flat, (normally) dry Meseta stretched on.

On day 18, like most days, I met up with some colorful people. One interesting character was this guy:

We all had pack envy of his rolling bag. He just zoomed right past us with his rolly pack. So smart! 

One of the loveliest, and simplest, people I met was a farmer in one of the small towns along the way. He was knocking the mudd off of his wooden clogs at the edge of his place when I walked by. We got to talking. There was little more than a block's worth of a main street to the town and I think he might have just been thankful to have someone to talk to. We chatted for a bit, and then he grabbed me by the back of the arm and told me that I was always welcome to come back to the tiny town and visit. I was quite touched actually. 

I also walked quite a bit with German Christian, Australian Kate and the Russian girl. I'd known Christian for a while (we had dinner together back in Terradillos), but had just met Kate. She was an Australian urban developer (and reminded me tons of my good friend Meghann). It was always fascinating to me to notice how our different backgrounds caused us to notice different things along the Camino. Christian was on a mission to teach her a new German word or phrase each day. I couldn't keep up, so I just learned two really well (Ja genauuu!). 

The Russian girl was a new face. She was walking huge distances each day and so had caught up with us from behind. She wasn't ready to stop at the end of the day and continued walking to the next town, so I didn't get to know her really well. What I did learn about her was that, while I wouln't even fathom carrying an entire bottle of shampoo, she was carrying a huge block of cheese, a liter of milk and an entire bottle of whiskey (which she drank together). 

Another vivid memory of the day was that the trail was lined with fragrant herbs. Kate, ever resourceful, picked herself a giant handful of what we were pretty sure was fresh thyme to go into the pasta dinner she was planning. 

When we got into town we had a peek at all three albergues and chose the one belonging to a guy named Jesus. Its walls were covered in sayings and messages in a dozen different languages, I ended up with a room to myself (hooray!), and the place had a kitchen--Kate, Christian, myself and a very talkative guy from San Francisco decided to cook dinner together. 

After cleaning ourselves up and doing laundry, I did a little blister maintenance and then soaked my feet in a laundry basket. I don't know why I hadn't thought of that before. We then made our way to the corner store to see what we could come up with for dinner.

Just walking down the street to the store we saw Villar de Mazarife pretty much in its entirety. It also turned quite cold when nightfall hit. It was time for layers and I had no shame walking around town and the albergue like this: 

We also got to feeling good when we started eating. We made something like a bag and a half of pasta, loaded with veggies, and a giant salad for only four people. We invited everyone we could, but there were no takers. Instead actually we ended up with more food--someone gave us their leftover bruschettas. It seemed impossible that we could eat that much food, but, let me tell you, we did. All of it. And it tasted so good. It also put us in the best of spirits. Maybe it was just the good food and good company, the nice view from our table on the rooftop of the hostel, or just the good day all around, but, sober as could be, we couldn't stop giggling and having the best time. When we looked back...we wondered if those sprigs of herbs might not have been thyme after all!

Finally!

A break from the norm because, well, I'm in a celebratory mood!

This week I've been in Abilene catching up with friends and former coworkers/professors/ students/roommates. I also caught up on the progress of a project I haven't thought about in a while.

Years ago I signed on to help out on an editing project which aimed to turn a giant stack of photocopied excerpts into a book containing a collection of T. B. Maston's writings. It was only supposed to last a semester, but, of course, it stretched on. I spent part of one summer typing up the articles into 749 single spaced pages of text (and also developing a case of self-diagnosed carpal tunnel!) and the duration of another summer hunting down copyrights. I spent hours upon hours reading, editing and hauling the thing around. It was not always an entertaining job, but I started to really love T.B. Maston.

Maybe it was just a byproduct of my stressed and sleep deprived state of mind at the time, but after so much time working on his writings I began to feel like I knew the guy (who died in 1988). In fact, it was my respect for Maston--who was an early supporter of racial equality in the volatile mess of racial tensions in the South, who along with his wife lovingly cared for their severely handicapped son in their home and, even though he had a degree from Yale, always tried to write so that his mom, who only had a 4th grade education, could understand it--that kept me going when my cynicism inched higher and higher.

My love for Maston kept me interested in the project and ended with me digging up bricks from his demolished house (...that's another story). I used to wear a locket quite frequently, but never got around to putting anything inside. You guessed it--(through an overly caffeinated decision and the luck that I happened to have a flyer with a perfectly sized picture of Maston at my fingertips) TB made his way into my locket.

Anyway, I signed off on the project way back in May of last year, but the book has been bogged down in formatting and publishing challenges ever since. I talked with one of the professors on the project and we both agreed that it seemed the thing might never get finished. Fifteen minutes later someone stopped me in the hall to tell me that they had just sent the final version of the reader to the publishers and the thing should be printed and bound (with my name on the cover!) in around 45 days.

In honor of this accomplishment, and of Maston, I'm rocking the locket today and digging up some old articles and videos of Ol' TB. I won't lie, its like visiting an old friend. 

Week In Review: Stateside!

Hello from Fort Worth! Like I said in the last post--I'm back! This last week has been a bit much for the ole noggin to process. I started the week in Seville, bid my sabbatical goodbye in Barcelona and then airport hopped my way home to Texas. Some observations from the week:

• My accent is back! After countless people telling me that "Your English is really good!" (Um? I'm a native speaker!) and a Canadian telling me she thought I was Norwegian, I was worried that I had done irreparable damage to my American accent (with even less hope for my Southern accent). I heard myself ask for a kn-ah-f (knife) last night, and thought, everything is going to be ok. 
• You know what is the best for this summer heat? Melon (cantaloupe) flavored agua frescas. Go to your nearest mexican restaurant and ask if they have them. 
• Everyone's kids got huge while I was gone!
• Apparently there are a lot of people reading the blog that I didn't know about. Some random people. But I love it! Don't feel shy people--feel free to leave comments, etc. even if I don't know you! 
• (Hi Pete! Hi Pete's dad!)
• In my mind summer food comes off the grill. This week I had bbq Spanish style (sardines), TexMex style (fajitas), Texas style (brisket), and Danny style (smoked chicken and ribs). 
• Opening a closet full of clothes after living out of a backpack for so long is a bit like Christmas. After being home for a few days though...I find myself reaching back into my pile of trip clothes (which is surprising). Slipping my Chacos back on after a few days felt oh-so-good. 
• Reentry is hard on the system. America, as much as I love it, is stressful. 
• I specifically chose some of the regions I traveled in because I could travel through them on public transportation--buses, trains and boats. And then there was the portion of my trip where I hiked 500 miles. After all that, I forgot how much I love driving! 
• After 8 months, I also forgot how much I do not like carrying a cell phone. If you call/text and I don't answer it's probably because the ringer is off and I forget that I have one. Eventually I'll get back to you. 
• I've been home 5 days. That's the max I've been in one place since January. I'm ready to head out...
• I'm going to Abilene tomorrow. I'm excited to see good friends, old roommates and some of my favorite people. I'm excited to eat La Popular burritos. I'm excited to see some horizon. But also, I'm just excited to be going somewhere. 
• You have some good reentry tips? Send them my way!
• I started looking at job postings this week. Anyone out there want to hire me? I swear I've got lots of marketable skills, like...talking to random strangers who end up being excons, walking long distances, wearing scarves...
• Oh, I'm also really good at eating flan. My next project is to dominate flan making. 

OK, that's about it. It's been great seeing so many of you this week!  Pictures below: 

Melon agua fresca--go get yourself one!

Picasso isn't Spain's only artist: Maica went all out on my last lunch in Seville

Although I have learned to love to eat it, I don't think I will ever get over the fact that Spanish ham comes with the hoof still attached

Maica and I performed a rescue operation on an abandoned ficus one afternoon. It was not too unlike problem-solving-taping up my ankle on the Camino: 

Sardines grilled up by Juanma. I used to be scared of these, but after they patiently explained to me how to eat them I found them to be pretty tasty!

My last meal in Barcelona: A goodbye Spain supper of calamaris and tinto de verano...

And of course flan

The Swiss Alps

I'm Back!

I've been a little MIA lately, but there has been a reason! The reason is that...I have been busy! I have been busy:

Sleeping. 
It took me a whopping 25 hours to get from Barcelona to Dallas/Fort Worth. The largely sleepless night in Barcelona, the long day on planes and wandering (sometimes running) through airports and the jet lag have hit me pretty hard. On top of that my allergies that were steadily getting worse starting in Greece (those pines kill me!) have exploded now that I am home. I've been waking up with my head spinning each morning. And then I go back to sleep.

Sweating. 

It's definitely warm here. It's the second hottest summer on record in Texas history. After Greece and Sevilla I don't think it's that bad, but 110 (43C) in the shade is pretty hot.

Eating. 

I've been hitting up the big Texas favorites: BBQ, TexMex and MexMex (as in Mexican Mexican food).

Drinking filter coffee. 
I have to admit that fresh out of Spain I was appalled at the coffee American Airlines served me on my flight home. Thankfully my dad has a stash of about 16 different kinds of coffee at our house and they have all been much, much better. My favorite thing about filter coffee is that you can sip giant cups of it without damaging your heart. I just finished a black iced coffee that had to be at least 1/2 a liter.

Reunion-ing. 
My parents came to meet me at the airport. My brother Brian lives in Fort Worth now and my brother Casey drove up from Austin to see me. I got to see my "nephew" and my cousin Michael. Today I got to have lunch with my best friend.

Winning tan contests. 

Before coming home my bff and old roommate Lindsay joked that I was probably tanner than she was. I laughed it off as impossible. I thought I was just tan for me. But after having lunch with her today and comparing--it turns out I am normal people tan, too (a first for me).

Doing laundry. 
With a machine! I felt a bit guilty, but I even dried it all in the dryer!

Listening to Flamenco and Andalusian Funk. 
Thanks Victor! When I close my eyes, it helps me forget that I am back in America.

Breaking out of the backpacker mold. 

I fixed my hair for the first time in 5 months. I wore perfume and actual shoes. I dressed in something other than the 3 outfits I've been rotating for months.

So there. You can see that I have been busy. I do have a bit of good news for you all too--even though I won't really be traveling much for the next little bit, travels on the blog will continue. Those of you who followed my actual itinerary noticed that I never got around to blogging a lot of places, and I'm still hopelessly behind on my Camino posts. So, for those of you who need a little bit of vicarious traveling, don't worry--I'll keep the stories and pictures coming! I'll see if I can't get a Trip In Review up soon, too.