Tuesday, June 5, 2012
Queridos amigos,
Tomorrow morning, Dios mediante, I will cross into Galicia and also pass the 400-mile mark.
Starting to tighten up a bit to make sure I hang on to everything. Concerned about my photographs, so I removed the camera card with all my pics on it and swapped it with my back up card. In case my camera goes missing, I will still have all the images I've captured so far. I carry the full card in a plastic case in the wallet I wear around my neck.
Leave Cacabelos early, seeing some beautiful black and yellow birds, but they are too quick for my camera. Also hear very pretty bird song that I heard the previous night at dinner and asked about it. Was told it was a mirlo.
I soon have to make a choice: to follow the highway, a slightly shorter but uglier route, or take the picturesque route. I decide to take the highway route. Ahead of me is a woman with a bicycle, studying a map.
She is from Wales, and started her Camino in the south of France near Toulouse. Yesterday she left Leon. Our timetables are so different. She says the hills here are not any harder than those in Wales. She has a road map but complains that it doesn’t show the scenic routes that the walkers take. I show her mine, and say I’m heading down the highway so I can get a real breakfast.
She says she will follow the beautiful route and offers me an apple. I decline the apple, but decide that she is right and also take the longer, more beautiful route.
I see many cherry orchards. In one, men are spraying the trees with insecticide. In another orchard is a sign warning against eating cherries because they have been treated with a toxic substance. Turns out the farmer who festooned his cherry trees with skulls and crossbones was not bluffing.
I have a real breakfast in Villafranca del Bierzo and use the ATM. It is dry goods market day, lots of clothes hanging on racks.
As I head out of town, I see many vineyards, and tall mountains. For most of the day I follow the rushing, white-capped Valcarce River. The river, then the forest, then the path, then the highway, then a high cliff of solid rock. That is the view for much of my walk.
Decided to try not using silk sock liners this morning and regret it. Four or five painful blisters as a result. At cafes along the way pilgrims are sitting with their shoes off, revealing bandaged feet.
My hotel is part of a truck stop. Lunch at the counter with a lot of beefy guys. One of them plays the electronic slot machine and wins at least 80-90 euros. He sits next to me and arranges them in stacks of 10 and gets folding money for them from the waitress. The TV is non-stop music videos at a high volume. Not my preferred environment.
As I walked today I wondered if the Camino is partly about leaving things behind as well as finding a new way forward. I wonder if leaving money is a symbolic way of getting free from something, perhaps the judgmental side of my personality. There are just a whole lot of people who don't appeal to my notion. I spend too much time on them; any time is a waste. What else can I leave behind?
Did not sleep well last night, so will try to catch up tonight.
Adios for now,
John
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