October 02nd, 2013

By yesterday  morning the rain had stopped and everyone´s  rain gear had dried out but our boots hadn´t quite.  As a result there was a wave of boot anxiety running through the mega-mall albergue at Hontanas,  many pilgrims  worried about having to go back out on the Camino in wet boots. I was suffering from a different kind of boot anxiety.  The  the woman in the bunk above mine didn´t know what she was going to do because her boots had fallen apart the day before in the rain and mud.  Which made me start to obsess over  what I would do if my boots fell apart.  I bought my boots a year ago and I´d been breaking them in ever since;  what if I´d over-done it and mine also fell apart  on a rainy day on the Camino? I worried over the scenario much of yesterday morning as we walked along the Meseta through the intermittent sun and rain.  Finally I formulated a plan:  if my boots fell apart I would catch a bus, taxi, horse,whatever, to  Leon, about 300 km from where we are now, - where I´d heard there was a big sporting goods store.  But what if they didn´t carry a pair of boots in Leon to fit my big narrow American feet?  And what if i found a pair of boots that fit but weren´t comfortable?  And what if I found  a pair of boots that fit and were comfortable but I couldn´t use them because I didn´t have a chance to break them in first?    And who even said my boots were going to fall apart anyway?   Finally I decided to try and take to heart the pilgrim saying:  Worrying is praying for something you don´t want. We walked on to the town of Castrojeriz where ate our lunch, Spanish omelet sandwiches made for us that morning at the restaurant of the Hontanas albergue, sitting on a bench in the rain.  We made a note to ourselves not to pack a lunch in the morning anymore.  Because from now on if it´s raining we want to eat lunch in a cafe, and if it´s not raining we could always buy picnic ingredients in our lunch destination town, but  if we pack a lunch in the morning and it´s raining in our lunch town and we can´t find a friendly albergue that will let us pop in and lunch-crash, then chances are we´ll end up again eating our lunch on a bench in the rain.  Which, by the way didn´t kill us, and was ´way less annoying than the whistling pilgrim we crossed paths with later that afternoon.  Nothing worse than a Camino whistler, they´ll drive you nuts, though I´ve heard Camino singers can also drive you batty, but we haven´t passed a singer yet.  We finished our 20.4 km´s and arrived at the small town of Itero De La Vega where we stayed at a really nice  little family-owned albergue/bar/restaurant, Puente Fitero 8 euros each.  There was also laundry service here (Give your filthy, reeking clothes to the hospitaliero and have them returned smelling like springtime! I´m getting spoiled! Even though I think the hospitaliero kind of gouged me - he charged 9 euros, translates into about $13.50, for my lad of laundry, but then I did sort of put him out since  I gave him my laundry late, right when he was in the midst of trying to get dinner together.  But I didn´t care about the 9 euros.   I´d have paid double!) The beds in the albergue were a tad close, but there was a big, really pretty courtyard where the pilgrims all congregated for a beer before dinner or just to sit and talk and strike up immediate friendships with fellow pilgrims they might never run into again. (But of course we´re always happy to meet-up  again with  fellow pilgrims down the road).  Once again I had the impression of a college campus, and over dinner that night (9 euros for salad, pork filet & fries for me, chicken filet & fries for Tom, ice cream for dessert for me, flan for Tom - delicious, as always) one of dinner mates made the same observation - the albergues felt like college dorms.  We had such good dinner conversation last night with a Belgian guy about our age who we´ve sort of been hanging with for the days, Chris, and the three Austrailans, Roger, his wife Liz, and their friend Martin, whom  we roomed with one night back in Viana.  Of course, Tom always gets the politcal discussion going, and this group made for good discussion, we just sat there talking for so long.  (Unfortuantely we happened to glance at a Spanish language TV yesterday morning so we could figure out, even in Spanish that the US government has been shut down.  Our fellow pilgrims from other countries are also concerned about this turn of events).  Well, the sun came up anyway this morning anyway and  the weather looks not to bad so hopefully we´ll be spared the rain - and the mud!  I wish you all the gift of a sunny day today.  Love, Patti 8)