Arrived yesterday afternoon, after 10 days and 250+ km. Everything is beautiful and we are both very excited.
Normal blogging, hopefully, will resume on Monday!
October 14, 2004
October 10, 2004
El Camino, Days 6-7
We arrived at a small town called De Palas De Rei this afternoon. After sunny, dry Leon region, the Gallican district is green and lush. But it also means: rain, rain and rain!!! It´s pretty tough walking 25km+ each day without the rain, but it rained for about 3 hours yesterday. It´s like a test of faith.
Still, there are only 69km to go until Santiago.
The closer we are to Santiago, the more privately provided albergue there are. They generally are more comfortable and never more expensive to the state option. But somehow, the "proper" pilgrims avoid them. Something to do with authenticity. It´s a good reminder that despite what liberal-marketeers might think, there are people who still find the market facilities more "vulgar".
This weekend is a long public holiday in Spain. There are thousands of "day-trippers" doing the Camino. They start about 100km away from Santiago, and have their bags sent from town to town and therefore walk quite a lot faster than we do. And also smell a lot nicer.
The iPod still rules. Listening to Larry Lessig´s Free Culture again.
October 08, 2004
El Camino, Days 2-5
On 4 October, we stayed in a pilgrims´hostel ("albergue") on top of a mountain in a small village called Foncebadon (altitude: 1,439m). We have been waking up earlier in the morning in order to catch the sunrise:
Averaging about 27km per day, we have made excellent progress. Took the bus to go over a massive mountain after Villafranca, which saved us one day´s worth of walking.
Got our digital photos saved onto a CD, hence the possiblity of posting them right now. Spain is pretty well connected digitally, with plenty of broadband Internet cafes in towns.
Yesterday (7 October) around 3:35 pm, we saw a pilgrim walking towards us. The first time in our journey. He told us that he started his Camino on 10 July and is on his way back!!!
Book recommendation: Hey Nostradamus! by Douglas Coupland.
Music recommendation: Gorky 5 by Gorky's Zygotic Mynci.
Recommendation in general: adding an "o" after an English word doesn´t make it Spanish!
October 04, 2004
El Camino, Day 1
Waking up in a Pilgrims´dorm to the sounds of three different alarm clocks. In Astorga. Three bloody alarm clocks, at the same bloody time - and just ten minutes before mine was due to go off...whoever told you the free-rider problem means things don´t get produced is lying to you. Or hasn´t been on a walking holiday, sleeping in dorms!
Just finished our walk for the day. 29 km (18 miles) all together. Sweating away in the heat, but the landscape is brilliant. Thanks to my iPod, I listened to Radiohead´s OK Computer. Listening to "Fitter happier" in the wilderness is quite something.
Every village along the way has a beautiful church. Building churches must be the best way to combat unemployment. Very Keynesian.
Recent Comments