Oh what a day!!!
I was one of the last out of the auberge this morning,I think a time of like eight am... I suspect my lovely Irish crew of Father, Tom and Mary was a good two hours ahead...I was totally fine with that. Father had shared that he thought they would stop in Santa Catarina so I had that in my mind but we also all agreed that we would never really know where we would end up of we decided to walk further or less. We had a large hill in a wooded area this morning and one nice sized town to go they enroute...Astorga. I passed a hippyish set up towards to the top of the hill about to decend into the town,where a guy had set up a home in the wilderness catering to pilgrims. He had a self service set up where you could make your own tea etc... A hammock and a nice sleeping area, I was on a roll and too lazy to take off my backpack but in hindsight I wished I had stopped and chatted with him.
When I reached the top of the hill overlooking the nice sized town, some people were getting back on trail from a nice rest area there. One guy seemed to start up to catch up with me, I heard his poles and went into overdrive...I could hear him going even faster at which I almost went into a full run, I was determined not to listen to his poles hitting the ground in this gorgeous forrest. Ahead of me I saw a person with a backpack, blue dock Martin high top boots, a scarf that resembled one from the middle east but it was pink and white, the resin wore a leather hat and carried a ukele (small guitar), I will be honest I could not tell if the person was a male or female, I really had little interest for conversation but as I was running away from clicking sticks I did luck out to get to here the strumming of this ukele and enjoyed it. As I was passing 'I' and I would strike up a conversation and benefitted immensely from the wonderful conversation to be had over the next several hours. 'I' is part Canadian and English and travels all over the world doing comedy, a funny soul who creates characters and does filming in character. This is his second Camino, the first done in full with a seven month stint working as a hospillario (volunteer at an auberge). He is not doing this full Camino as her has acquired friends in these travels and during his volunteer time and is heading to the coast to surf after a few days on trail, his whole life seemed kind of up in the air and I orchestrated. He gave me some wonderful insight into raising sons, he is late twenties but shared some similar stories to our families circumstances and I would leave this day determined to come back and walk the Camino with my three oldest sons. We pulled into a nice city on the hill called Astorga. I knew my three Irish buddies were going to spend two hours walking around this adorable town, my new buddy would suggest that we pop into a market to get stuff for lunch...we made sandwiches, chopped tomatoes with cheese and sat at a fountain and ate. Father, Tom and Mary had dropped the name of Santa Catrina being our stopping point so we headed in that direction and I passed an adorable aubergue and instantly saw Father ordering drinks...
My new buddy wanted to go on but did stick around for a bit of conversation and when I saw dear Adelaide (who has walked since early July from Brussels) come hopping down the bunny trail I sent both if them off together down the trail like a proud mama. Adelaide was trying to catch up with the young crew I was with in Tosantos, she would be walking until late but appeared happy to do so. As she hugged me goodbye to me she told me she was carrying my little Adelaide in her heart all the way to Santiago!
I would enjoy the night with my precious friends over dinner at our aubergue where they worked hard to supply a great meal.
I would walk by myself in the morning, which I enjoy, and your never alone for long out here. I'm starting to worry that I might lose my crew...I really like to stop and smell the roses and can do that and enjoy their company in the evening, but out here there are do many choices and just feeling really good might make you proceed further than you thought. My Irish crew has a place called Acebo picked out for tomorrow and I actually think I might push on, not a huge biggie in that if I am ahead it really just means their early start will have them walk by my town when my lazy self is just getting up.
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