The power of the Camino

Hello from Astorga:
More about this beautiful city as time permits, but first as to the subject at hand.
Two days ago, our Italian daughter, Carla asked Carol if she would take the bus with her to Leon. Carla has ankle and Achilles problems, and Carol was still hurting with her little toe, so she agreed, without reservation. Two of Carla´s pals, Paul and Patrice, decided to take the bus as well, because they wanted to see more of Leon than time would allow if they walked the 24 miles. I declined because it didn´t make any sense to me to take a bus and miss part of the Camino just to see a city. Leon was beautiful, but if I want to see Leon, I´ll come back and see it. I came to do the Camino.
The next day when we left Leon, Carol and I decided we would go a certain route and Carla and Patrice went the other route. Carla said one thing that was beautiful about the Camino was that people could be together and separate and enjoy being back together again when they met later at a later point on the trail. All well in theory, but when they took the different route, I just felt inside that our two weeks with her had ended. I didn´t feel sad about it, nothing negative, right:-) it was just that people come and go in your lives here. And this was the end of our time together. I rejoiced in the time we did have, she was a real gift to both of us. We took the route we did because it was a little shorter and we could go beyond Astorga tonight. Again that meant that we´d never see Carla again, since she was stopping in Astorga on the second night
We started off yesterday and Carol was really struggling. We made very slow time and hobbled for about four hours when she decided to cut a hole in her shoe so that her little toe would not have the pressure of the shoe rubbing against it. That worked wonders and off she went at a speed and comfort which I had not seen for many days.
At the end of an 8 hour trek, we reached our destination and were able to get a room that had two bunk beds in it and a door which closed. That meant that we could get to sleep at 9 pm and gave us an hour and a half more sleep than if we stayed in the dormitory. We could dress in ease and no snorers, well hardly any:-)
We left this morning at 6:30 and got to a point where again we had to make an option as to which route we would take. We decided and walked for about 5 hours until all routes came together for the final descent into Astorga. Just as we got to the point of the routes joining, who shows up on the other route, well of course (what kind of a story would it be if it was Joe Blow) was Carla. Two days apart, three totally different routes, and we wind up at exactly the same place at exactly the same time. Coincidence, right?
She had walked 26 miles yesterday because she did not want to lose contact with us. She was overjoyed to see us and it was hugs and kisses all around. She cried out:"mami, mani" when carol approached. Really sweet stuff.
I told her that we had decided that she was gone and that we´d not meet again, but she just looked at me and said, simply but determinedly: "NO!" She knew that our time together was not at an end. So naturally we stopped in Astorga rather than continuing on. Don´t want to push the guiding spirits too far. They brought us this far, I know when to back off.
Carol is doing well, slow but steady, and has no doubts that she will make the next 11 days. We can´t believe that we´ve done 19 already. The miles keep descending to Santiago and the spirits keep rising. Each day brings the same, but each day is different. It´s hard to explain, but as Carol said: "At the beginning everybody´s spirits kept everybody else up as we started this trek together, and now that so many of them have gone on to different schedules, we look to our own energies and reflective times to get us through."
In spite of her physical problems, you know my wife and best friend. Her spirits are always positive, and every time something happens to make me think that she might not make it, she proves to me the strength that I know she has. One reason she is so slow is that she has to stop and examine every flower and animal which crosses her path. I no longer stop for her. I slow my pace and wait for her to catch me. She comes up excitedly and tells me that this is the same plant which they use for blue, or was it black, dye, called woad (sp), or that we have this same plant, but that the colors are different, there are blues, yellows, reds, purples and she just basks in the colors and smells as she steps out the miles, no matter the pain. She stops to look at all the different snails on stalks, dragon flies different from anything she´s ever seen before. And a myriad of things which make Carol the only woman I could ever live with.
Now to Astorga.
This place is incredible, and it´s hard to believe that we were going to keep on going and not stop here. Thank you Carla. We liked Leon much better than Burgos, most people did. Part of the problem was that to enter Burgos on the Camino you have to pass a really ugly, smelly, hot, and otherwise miserable stretch of industrial plants. Then the refugio is past the center of town so that you weren´t in the heart of it and when you’re tired, you don´t want to walk all over the place to get to see the city. The Burgos cathedral is quite marvelous, but there are not any stained glass windows.
Leon, on the other hand, was easily assessable, had pilgrim help stations as you entered the town, and the refugio is right in the heart of the medieval center. Since it is a convent, men sleep in one dormitory and women in another, with one exception. Married men sleep in the women´s dorm with their wives. I was one of a half dozen, I suppose, non dispossessed men in the 200 or so women. Oh well, life´s tough;-) In the cathedral, the windows just jump out at you from all around and on three different levels. Absolutely glorious. Carla, who paints stained glass windows for churches, was gaga, as you might expect.
I have yet to go inside the Astorga Cathedral, but from the outside, it certainly is my favorite. Hard to describe in words, but it just is so beautiful the way it all ties together, rather than seeming like different structures done all at different times in different styles. There is the Gaudi palace, an architect who I fell in love with visiting Barcelona as a kid of 19, and one of the best classical lunches I´ve ever had for $10.
Right now, Carol is taking a nap. We´ve got to go out and buy a guide book for the Camino, since I left the zip lock with, not just one, but both copies of our route. The other bad thing was that I had my friend Sarah´s weekly cards in the same bag. She had wonderfully given me six cards with spiritual blessings and thoughts in them for me to opine upon during my trek. I´ll miss my Sarah fix on Wednesdays.
Well two big things are coming up in the next three days. First is Cruz de Ferro, this incredible place where pilgrims have left rocks for over a thousand years. I´ll write about that after we get there on Saturday and then probably on Monday we reach O Cebreiro, which is the big 4000 foot climb in a 20 mile day. There is a web cam at the refugio which broadcasts live pictures and I´ll try to send the website to everybody so that they can see us after the long climb. We want to prove that we´re really not just hanging out in Galt and writing from a Holiday Inn Express.
Since our arrival will be in the late afternoon, which will be early morning in California, noon on the east coast, about the same time in Lithuania, and god only knows what time in Mongolia and all the other places where our friends and family are scattered, We´ll try to stand in front of the camera on the hour at 2-3 different times - if we´re still standing that is. You can get the website by doing a Google, or whatever search engine you do, search asking for "o cebreiro webcam" I´ll also ask my daughter to send it to me so I can paste it in here, Are you listening Ang? I could do the search here, but hey, I´m tired!!
So the days just keep rolling along. 19 done, 11 more to go. 166 miles left to do, 334 done. Technically, we´ve only done 317, but what with missed markers, retracing steps, walking around towns, and various and sundry other walks, we´re sticking to our original 500 miles for the Camino. It´s such a nice round figure and makes subtraction so much easier for our frazzled minds.
When I do or say something stupid which is often these days, Carla does this little Italian hand signal and says:"cuckoo, cuckoo," and laughs at me. No wonder I don´t like Italians.
We´re great, hope all of you are as well. Lots of big, hopefully big enough, towns lay ahead which will have internet places where I can let you know about o cebreiro time schedules and websites for those of you interested. Carol said, "Man, in just two days we´re down to single figures, I Can´t believe it." Well, neither can I, but it does seem to be the truth.
Love to all, and thanks for the positive feed back.
Carol and Jim