August 31, 2018

Today I descended out of León early in the morning. I was confused much of the first hour as there were no “la fletcha amarillos” (yellow arrows) until I got to San Marcos. However, because I took the tourist train into town the day before, I had a sense of where I needed to go.  The beginning of my route was very industrial. About an hour into my day, I encountered Lauren from South Africa. He was just in his first two days of his walk and proceeding rather gingerly.. 

Eventually, we were joined by a New Jersey gal, Rebecca. She and I hit it off, and I thoroughly enjoyed walking with her! Lauren dropped off to have a coffee, and the two of us pursued the path together. 

Rebecca and I were perfectly intune to each other, at least so I thought! She is well educated and traveled, has a comedic, thoughtful and interesting personality and has purposefully chosen to walk a very medium paced Camino. This seemed to be a conflict in the beginning, but certainly, she is one of the few I was able to bond with. In actuality we walked at the same tempo – she just chose not to walk as many miles in a day as I. Yet, in our “dia” together, we chose easily to stay at the same town and albergue. It was very cool because it had a pool and was quite an open and colorful space! Yet so many of the perigrinos were smokers that I had a huge headache most the time! The local church was not open when I first walked around this tiny, tiny town-but later when I was in having a snack at the other albergue in town, the woman who was in charge of locking and unlocking the sanctuary came up to me and said, “Hey I’m opening up for an hour and a half, would you like to come in?” I did so, became very emotional, and enjoyed my 20 minute experience.

 

Since starting out last month, I have connected with two different groups of people. The Initial one we started off with. Then, after Dixie’s injury, there was a second group. Both have basically moved on ahead. My third set of folks seem not so compatible… or maybe it is just because I don’t have that much “giving” energy at the moment. In fact, there have been a couple of downright creepy individuals! Alot of people are in groups or couples already, and there are several young people. Not that any of those facts preclude me from a connection, but I have to say – many of them also seem to be smokers and I choose not to hang around that at this point my life.

 

As is my style, I hit the sack early.  Rebecca went to the late Pilgrims’ dinner, however we plan to meet again in the morning as she is willing to set out early!