Day of Gratitude
I was out the door by 7:00 this morning. It was a self-serve breakfast and there wasn't much to it. My major motivation was the weather report. I used two different forecasting resources. One predicted it would start to rain at 4:00 in the afternoon, and the other said 2:00 p.m.
For safety reasons, it was important that I did not leave my hotel until it was at least a little bit light outside. The initial mile and a half was on city streets and the commuter traffic was fairly intense. Many of the drivers hit the corners with the intensity of a stock car driver in the Daytona 500.
Following the Buen Camino app and the yellow arrows on the street, I was taken to a highway where I got to play a game of human frogger. I actually had to climb over a concrete highway divider to get to the trail on the other side. About a quarter-mile further down, I saw a pedestrian overpass that safely traversed the highway. I think I would have preferred that.
The sky was mostly clear as the sun crept into view. I was on a trail that turned into a logging road. Men were out harvesting some of the eucalyptus trees. Soon the type of vegetation began to change. Now there were ferns dotted among the trees.
The sun was still very low in the sky as I emerged from the wooded area and approached yet another highway. For the majority of the day, if I wasn't crossing a road I was crossing a railway line. I believe it was the same set of railroad tracks. I simply followed a circuitous path that intersected at different places. There were several sections of the trail that ran immediately alongside the railroad tracks. I couldn't imagine being on that trail when a train actually came lumbering by. I spent so much time walking the tracks I felt a hobo bindle would have been more suited to the day.
Today I focused on gratitude for little things. Little things like my decision to carry my trekking poles with me instead of packing them to be carried with my baggage. The thought of packing them occurred to me when I saw there might be thunderstorms. Carrying lengths of aluminum around out in the open did not seem to be a good idea. As it turned out, going up and down the steep hills today would have been an incredible challenge for me without them.
Then there was gratitude for the high winds today that kept most of the flies away. I was also grateful for the cafe that was open where it wasn't supposed to be. I was about seven miles in, and sitting in a nice chair with a back to it, with my shoes off, while I enjoyed my coffee and Danish, was a very pleasant break.
Two hours later I walked into a small cafe that was about four and a half miles from my destination. It was another opportunity for gratitude. For eight euro I had vegetable soup (which definitely contained pork). Then a pasta and beef dish that was the feature for the day. I guess the "special" price included a small bottle of water. I asked for a glass of local red wine. She brought me out a carafe. I indicated that it was way too much. The woman, who spoke no English, replied that it was really only a couple of glasses worth. After a couple of glasses there was still a considerable amount still left in the pitcher.
I've been playing leapfrog for the last several days with a nice Italian couple from the Genoa area. Marianna and Micro seem to be moving up the Camino at the same pace that I am. I met them for the first time at that cafe where I grabbed the coffee. They had also jumped the highway barrier to stay on the trail this morning. Then, as I was leaving the restaurant where I had lunch, they arrived. I shared my leftover wine with them.
They have been staying in albergues (hostels). They informed me that there were no hostels open in our destination city. I asked them if they were going to have to stop in another town and they replied that they wouldn't. It turns out that fire stations accommodate pilgrims when there are no other rooms available.
With less than 30 minutes to go, I caught up with another pair of walkers. One was Laura from Germany, who lives in Vienna and plans to travel to the Canary Islands to get a graduate degree. And the other, Elaria, is an Italian living and working in Spain. We chatted for a few minutes with Laura switching between English and Spanish to accommodate her two fellow travelers. In the absence of an available hostel they had decided to split a hotel room for the night to save money. Hostels are usually only a fraction of the price of a hotel room. But, they had agreed that they would treat themselves, and with breakfast included, it wasn't a bad deal at all.
The sky was clouding over and there were occasional drops of rain. The ladies and I split up to go to our respective hotels. I hurried my pace a little to try to beat the rain. That was truly another opportunity for gratitude. I walked into the lobby and within two minutes the skies opened up.
A grocery store and a place for dinner were each less than three minutes away. The only negative thing about this hotel was that there is no hair dryer and no air conditioning. Right now it is 65 degrees, but the humidity is lingering close to 100 percent. I might have some very damp clothes in the morning to drag along. Still, it was a day filled with gratitude.
