October 01st, 2013

Yesterday along with the ultimate pilgrim experience we almost had the ultimate supreme pilgrim experience.  After having an awesome breakfast in the bar at Rabe De Las Calzadas, having the bar owner make us sandwiches and sides of olives and cocktail onions  to take along for lunch and grabbing a couple of cream-filled pastries for the road I went to pay for everything and found I didn´t have my wallet!  I immediately emptied my pockets and my backpack on a bar table.  But it wasn´t there.  So we left all our gear in the bar and  told the bar owner we´d be  right back .  He was standing behind the bar engrossed in his  smart phone from which he didn´t look up but he waved  his hand and said, "take your time, relax." -¡ We were very relaxed.  Not!  We  hot-footed it back through the town, up the steps and through the garden gate  - which, fortunately wasn´´t locked - back to the little albergue attached to our hosptaliero´s house, and luckily, the mini-albergue didn´t even have a lock on the door!  And there was my wallet on the floor of the albergue-room!  I was so jubilant that setting out for our first day on the Meseta (the  vast, empty Spanish plains) in the pouring rain with wet laundry pinned to our backpacks didn´t  even seem all that bad.  At least for the first few hours.  But by the time we  reached the town where we´d  planned to stop to eat lunch my mood was such that I couldn´t forgo (in so many words) making the observation  that, retrospect it would have made more sense, instead of  along  sandwiches, to have planned to eat at a cafe where we could at least get in out of the rain and dry off. (I´m afraid I didn´t express myslef that politely, though).   Tom replied, "The Camino will provide.¨  Yeah, right, thought I.  But then as we approached the town´s little albergue the light bulb went off in my head:  I popped into the albergue and asked the hospitaliero if we could maybe eat our lunch on the table of the albergue´s common room.  "Of course,"  replied the awesome hospitaliero, "you can´t eat your lunch out on the street in the rain!"  So the Scoutmaster was right:  the Camino provided!  After lunch we slogged on in the wind and rain over the muddy, unchanging plain until we reached our18.5  km destination, the twon of Hontanas.  On the Camino we pilgrims still exhcanged "Buen Caminos", but none of us  were our cheeryusual, walk-next-to-each-other -and chat-for -a while selves. We all just gloomed on.  Except for the Scoutmaster.  He was his usual, upbeat self.  To anyone he recognized as understanding English he´d call:  "In the Army weused to say,, if it ain´t raining, it ain´t training."  One girl called back, "If it´s not sunny, that´s not funny!"  so even the driving rain can´t quench witty repartee on the the Camino!  the mud was bad, though, it stuck to our boots and threatened to pull them off our feet.  I was feeling anxiety because my boots and rain pants were so mud-covered.  I couldn´t stop thoughts like, "How will I clean my rain gear?  What if they won´t let me in the albergue because my boots are so mud-covered?¨"  Of course, that kind of thinking was ridiculous, since every other pilgrim on the trail was just as wet and muddy as me!  The town of Hosanas finally seemed to just pop up from out of nowhere on the plain, but what a town!  What I actually mean is, what an albergue!  It was kind of like an albergue mall.  It had a bar, restaurant, mini mall, laundry service (which everybody, of course, jumped on!) and lots of sinks to wash our dirty gear in and lines to hang them on.  It was a massive place, and the staff was so don´t-worry-about-the-dirt laid back that I felt as if I´d arrived at my El Dorado.  All this at a cost of 5 euros per person!  Dinner in the dining room was 9 euros and delicious:  salad for starters, then Tom  had the chicken stew and I had the very tasty beef stew, then ice cream for me and blueberry flan for Tom.  We sat with a couple other pilgrims, and they agreed that they were feeling down on the Camiano today, a combo of the rain, mud, and unchanging landscape.  But we were all feeling good at dinner, thankful for such nice accomodations and fellowship.  I guess it´s as Tom said:  the Camino will provide. So now for  us it´s back out  ont the muddy Camino, but may your day provide you with all you need.  Love, Pattti 8)