Walking is not quite as easy as in the past days.. even though I always experience some pain by the second half of the walk.. but today it just requires more effort to walk..... yet being able to walk for two hours without break is still possible and relatively new...As I am walking during sunrise.. I meet bicycle man he is sixty eight, and from Germany, he quickly tells me his life story. He had had a carrier as a horse breeder and trainer. I think it was for racing....he became a wealthy businessman ..a few years back, he got diagnosed with prostrate issues, high blood pressure...and later, brain aneurysm was discovered....This changed his life around..for one, he became vegetarian... some ancient corn diet and chestnut flour were a few of the ingredients he mentioned... it seems that he had medical intervention for his ailments but then switched to natural healing processes. And as is not unusual in his stories, his doctors had warned him of a life time of health problems... yet somehow through his life style changes that also included his point of view on life, he was able to go off all the medications he was on, and return to a healthy constitution without them.. he said he was not doing the Camino for a spiritual quest, he felt he was doing it as a symbolic and physical triumph over unlikely odds. He was suppose to be dead now or seriously ill, instead he was biking 80kms a day...and feeling great. As far as his previous carrier, he says he can't do it any more.. he feels there is so much cruelty to the animals that he cant bear it anymore since he now has too much empathy for them. He says he used to love to ride and even hunt, now he can not even sit on top of a horse anymore... he also said the business involved a lot of 'fronting' and doing things for appearances sake. Like having a giant house, and fancy cars in the driveway to impress business associates... also it was a cut throat business where honesty was often not possible... He now wants to write book, about his experience and share what he has learned about taking care of his health and getting positive messages out about being vegetarian... the way he talked it sounded like another business venture but clearly he was motivated by the need to help others avoid the pitfalls he had fallen into....He thinks we can turn world around very fast if we stopped trying to produce cheap meat..the talked about torturing, raping and killing animals.. I did not get the rape bit for a while, since I thought of bestiality and did not think it was what he meant... instead.. I think he means the modern means of animal husbandry...forcing artificial insemination etc..He wants to live to be a hundred...he had met a Swiss man, also on the Camino, who thinks like him, but was further on in this healing path...the Swiss man had talked to him about energetic expressions of the planet..its the planet's signaling that we've gone too far...the oil spill in the gulf of Mexico is such an energetic expression..(energetic expression is the closest I can come up with since he was talking to me in German, and I did not quite now how to translate that idea)..... I have definitely met people who had had life changing illnesses, but when their lives stabilized and they were in the 'clear' not everyone seemed to hang on to their new found resolutions ... he seemed to have had a full conversion of view. After half hour or so of walking and talking, he got on his bike and we said our farewells...
I then walked by myself for the rest of day.. The villages were close together today, but I did not stop really till noonish for overpriced cheese bread and coffee.. My stomach was still bugging from the day before.. I took yogurt pills.. the afternoon walk was harder...feet hurt more. ...especially the left heel ..and again more of the dreaded tarmac walking ... This young German couple passed me, they were deep in conversation, we would not connect... but later we would meet at the same Auberge and become friendly, ironic since i had thought they were a bit snotty at first only to have view thrown out a few hours later.......
In all, I walked 24kms this day, found the Auberge listed in my book. Outside, it was plain..inside charming.. The old man running the place had santa claus like energy, radiating trust and sweetness. The place was lovely..and I would have my own room! Three Germanics show up ( I say this since they all spoke German but I was not sure of their actual nationality), two i recognize as the couple from earlier... I shower and do laundry before they arrive...then a nice siesta again till four, perhaps this being my favorite part of pilgrimage... then I sat around in post-nap grog playing on my laptop...the dinner was included and communal. The man had made special veggie dish for me.. it was veggie paella with a salad containing tuna for starters (tuna here is considered vegetarian). He was concerned that i liked it, so I made sure to let him know that it all tasted delicious, because it did...
..The three others were two German men and a Swiss woman, they were thirty and younger... The Swiss woman understood some Spanish (self taught) so she is able to translate the stories our host is telling us.. He warns us of crowded conditions in last 100kms of the Camino. I get asked about my long pilgrimage and one of the men is curious about meditation and retreat places.....One of the guys seems like a scholar, he is both a bit of a wise ass but also takes his catholic faith more serious than most. He is also from Frankfurt region and we joked about that communality... We were then lead to the small study, which was also a type of museum, it housed various collections such as toy knights, and other knight related regalia like swords, also a spoon and thimble collections, it was surprisingly not tacky looking... here we chatted more.. including about buddhism and catholicism ... and that people needing to break the rules of the church since it was too authoritarian... it also turns out that none of them were a couple, like I had previously thought. The young man from Frankfurt and the Swiss woman had only known each other over a week, but they a rapport with each other, was as if they had known each other for years.. We would later make speculations on the condensed life span of the Camino, one week on the Camino was like a few years in normal life, when it came to things like human connections or even wear and tear on body.... I did not know what to make of the young man from Frankfurt at first, he would say incendiary things just to get a rise, he was cocky but also he had a kind heart and an earnest interesting in connecting with others ... I probably would not have end up in long conversations with some one like him in ordinary life... and as I would get to know him, I realized I would have missed out..
Then at our host's suggestion we go drink two rojo's at the bar near the Auberge, it is some sweetish herbal liquor... it helps lubricate conversation some more. The other young man with the longer hair and handsome prince Valiant look does not talk as much this eve, but I would get to know him the next day..... I go to bed latish..but relish my single room!...
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