Soul’s Code

A beautiful day today and a good smooth walk. Yesterday visited the Romaneque church of Santiago at Bierzo passing through the Puerta del Pardon where medieval pilgrims too sick to continue were granted forgiveness if they got that far. Stay at Ave Fenix refugio, strange, unique and fun. We´ve met wonderful people on the Camino and look forward to seeing them on the road.

Weather perfect today with lots of blue sky and just cool enough for walking. I am looking out the window as I write at a medieval building with a crest of some sort in stone. We love the little villages we pass through and have enjoy bocadillas, sandwiches with big bread and often tortillas that is an omelet. The wine is good and on hot days San Miguel beer does a lot to rehydrate us.

Dinner tonight in the hostel in a few minutes and it smells wonderful. It is hard to get time on computers because everyone is away from home and wants to contact families.  Many women traveling alone in complete safety.  Many Germans, French and French Canadians. We met two Americans last night from CA and one was 79 and in great shape. We had drinks yesterday with Pierre 75 from France and Joy 58 from Australia. What an experience in understanding others.

Also spiritual discussion and much talk about what the Camino means.

Cuckoos sing our song as we trudge along.

We keep marveling at the natural beauty, the kindness and patience of Spanish and our good fortune to be able to do this.

Time to close.

We are spending the night in lush wine country after a grueling trip over one mountain range, with heavy rain one day, cold, cold wind (I wished I brought gloves) and difficult walking. The way is often treacherous with jagged rocks everywhere. Otis and I are holding up well, in fact as well as the other pilgrims, in spite of our age. Tomorrow we get ready to go up another range. We have gone about 80 miles in our seven days of walking. I have gotten blisters too and have joined the company of the limpers. Very nice and warm today, finally.

The flowers remain spectacular. Roses are out everywhere, some the size of a softball. Nice healthy gardens in the wine region. We have remarked that the place is a botanists paradise. Lovely old towns and churches, lots of kind pilgrims who are always eager to help. Needless to say we are enjoying the vino tinto. It varies greatly in quality, but overall very good. We are picking up a little Spanish and people are patient with us.

I must close, my time is up!