Eduardo, who owns and manages hotel el en Camino, is a flautist and has a degree in music. He’s not picked up a flute in 30 years however as he and his family started the albergue in 1985. He loves the Camino, loves greeting the guests, understands their journey, their need to go to their rooms and rest and so gives them the room keys and says, “we’ll sort the details later”. The guests want this too, want community, a personal touch and authenticity, but email, whatsapp, and text are keeping him up till 11pm every night sorting the pre-bookings, making it more commercial, making it impossible (almost), to say, “here’s your key, we’ll sort the rest out later”…to provide a warm, personal welcome. ( also the government rules have changed. Previously they only required a passport scan, now they require passport, address, phone email etc etc. Pilgrim ID bar codes have made this faster but not everyone uses them…increasing the process time.). Eduardo’s struggle with change certainly didn’t taint our experience. His hostel, separate to the albergue, is modern and spotless, but filled with paintings and wonderful wraught iron sculptures. His brother and cousin served the pilgrims dinner with warmth and generosity and we slept very comfortably in a private room (got to do that sometimes).
The metamorphosis from stingy blister sock porridge to pain free feet has been interesting. My two little toes have curled over, nails out, and flattened so the bottoms (previously the sides) have formed a kind’ve circular frog toe shape. Meanwhile, the actual toe bottoms, now squished under the second toes have formed a callused knife edge that Di reckons I could cut cheese with. We’ve not put this to the test yet, mainly because I’d struggle to get my foot on the table with any sort of decorum – but also because of the stink. Blue vein? Just thought you’d like to know. Expect more of this quality, they tell me there’s less to see on the Meseta!
This morning was colder than yesterday but dead still, the cold moist air cloaking our path in a heavy mist. It was very pleasant walking, across fields and along an old barge canal tow path until the mist burnt off late in the morning revealing a brilliant deep blue. A french couple we joined for awhile have a daughter in St. Lucia Brisbane, not far from us – small world. Phillipe talks mostly in French in a high register with little laughs at the end of each sentence, ‘she builds a desalination plant, you know this? heh heh heh’, he was, how you say, ‘financial. And so, they fall in love heh, heh, heh.’
We stopped in Formista for coffee and breakfast; tortilla, ham and lettuce sandwich and some gilders (anchovie, olive, peppers and cheese on a toothpick), and stretched the legs for awhile.
In Poblacion de Campus we stopped for the self proclaimed ‘improbable guru’ to make us two very nice wax seals for our pilgrims passport, before taking the river path to the north and so avoiding the road. Shaded by the trees and mesmerised by the gently babbling stream we watched the clouds form a spectacular ‘Spanish Armada’ out over the tapestried wheat fields. Glorious.
We reached Vallalcazar de Serga three-ish and after a wine and rest, checked out the 13th century Templar influenced fortress church, which was pretty impressive. Steak and chips dinner for 9.50 euro at the Las Catingas where we’re staying, nice.
Catingas, I understand, are the songs describing the miracles of saints, and here, of the Virgin of Vallalcazar de Sirga. As you’d expect, the songs chronical the healing of cripples, blindness cures, calming of storms etc. Fourteen miracles in all. The church chronicles such miracles for prosperity of course but it’s no coincidence that they also significantly enhanced Vallalcazar’s importance on the pilgrimage and subsequently her economy as pilgrams streamed through on their way to Santiago de Compostella. Given the great numbers of pilgrims, I suspect a more useful statistic (for prosperity) would be the number of pilgrims that continued on to Santiago blind and crippled. Couldn’t find a brochure on that.
