the night before the auberge woman made the rule that no one can wake up till 5.30..which is a great act of compassion, I have to say... so at exactly 5:31 the french peeps in my zone started rustling and shaking the bed...so I too got up..there was cold coffee we could microwave and biscuits...since I am now friends with S (although our communication is at best limited) I sit with the french people and they share bread with me..... I get going by 6.12 S joins me... I am still not sure why...she has a faster pace and seems to keep waiting for me when I lag behind....perhaps she does not want to walk alone.. moon is still out and slowly the sun rises.. it is a pretty sight as we climb our only hill in the Meseta...the rest of the day is predictably flat..... I felt like we would hit a town sooner. But we hit the first a long 9kms in.. and it was a small italian monastery with Padua italy affiliation.. it's name was a San Nicolas de Puente Fitero... we had our credentials stamped by an italian man running the place.. and little cups of coffee.. there I had a quick conversation with a s. african couple... the woman seemed quite inspired by the spiritual possibilities of walking the camino...and was very curious about what I might have learned in my three or so months of walking..i never know what to say..so I just start blabbing until something comes out that seems about right for the day....but we seem to have rapport..the man seems more preoccupied with the physical hardships of walking..and does not join our little bubble of euphoria... there was an american navy chaplin who was walking the camino with a young american marine..they have both completed their active duty.. the marine who I only met later, was off to law school in the midwest and the chaplin was heading into retirement... both had been in iraq, and both had to deprogram.. although he was a catholic by religion, he had not heard about the Camino until a few months ago when he was doing research on the Internet.. this surprised me...
As a chaplin he had heard a lot of trauma stories from soldiers it sounded like he had experienced what is now coined as 'secondary trauma' (at least in my little world of west coast social work).... He talked about doing things like pilgrimage to heal the healer.. he also talked about taking soldiers on pilgrimage to Assisi … since st Francis was also a POW before he had his religious experience and eventually became a saint. I had not heard this before about St Francis...They want to use his story as an example of spiritual growth that can perhaps follow war trauma ..... after st nicolas the next town came quick.. but food options did not seem promising. So we decided to 'power walk' the 8kms to the next town.. I dont think I had walked 8kms so quick in the entire pilgrimage...less than hour and half. ...the meseta is looking flatter and even more barren.. still there is a cooling breeze at least till eleven or sometimes noon......Boadilla del Camino.. I got a real cup of coffee and some potatoe type salad, the salad looked like it came out of can..i did not care, I was hungry..... A.the french man, joins us..telling us of a better places we could have eaten... he knows every town on the camion and all the best places to eat and drink and what the specialties are in each region... … I am impressed at the ease with which I seem to be able to walk these days....at least, relative to how it has been... and at a much faster pace.. Fromista is a place where a lot of peeps stop for the night. It seems a charming town.. there are multiple auberge options but I want to go on and S continues with me.... I am not used to having someone match all my decisions so much on the camino..it is a bit weird... but she is a quiet person and we seem to be able to walk the same pace for now.. just 3.5 kms more to a smaller town.. Poblacion de Campos. It is a Municipal auberge..which means it's simpler and dingier without really being dirty... Right before it a new french woman joins us. She was injured and walking with a limp. I walked slower. Chatting with her..she speaks really great english and is easy to talk to... S seems to know her but is impatient and walks up ahead to where A is... this woman too is doing the Camino over several years in stages..this time she has started in Burgos. This was suppose to be her final leg..
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