Day 20

Day 20 – Fromista to Carrion de los Condes
19k – 375k to date

Today is a fun day to be traveling. I have traveled to the hostel at the Iglesia de Santa Maria del Camino to spend the night. So what is so special about this place? They have a convent here and the nuns entertain with folk singing and there is a later pilgrim blessing followed by a communal meal. While this is not Julie Andrews in the Sound of Music, it is another example of how different Churches and organizations try to address the needs and wants of the pilgrims on the Camino. To me, it is fun and special that these nuns make the effort to entertain and create community.

I woke early today after a blessed nights sleep in a hotel room, rather than a hostel, and decided to hit the road early to make sure I was in time to get a bed at the Santa Maria hostel. There are only 52 beds here, so this place filled up quickly, as they say “Completo”. When I left this morning, it was 8c with a wind chill of 3c, in case you are wondering, that is about 47f with a wind chill of 38f. It stayed that cold until about 3k from arriving. I and everyone else, were not prepared for cold weather, especially in the region we are in that is supposed to be the hottest area we pass through. I purchased a light jacket in Burgos and from there, you just wear clothes in layers. Today, I actually wore a pair of socks for gloves, only my ears ended up lacking a good covering. But as brisk as it was, it was nice not to have yesterday’s rain and most dealt with the cold fairly easy. Tomorrow is supposed to start chilly, but warm up fast, then a few days of good weather and the wind is finally dying down a bit. This morning the wind was blowing enough that several cyclists past us, but just barely, as they fought the headwind.

Today’s walk was almost always following a farm to market road from Fromista to here. It was not an exciting view, but as always as you reach each small town, there are things to see that are interesting. Most everyone walking today just had their head down and we’re moving forward. Luckily for me, I had a short trek of 19k, so this is the first time I arrived at a hostel before the normal opening time. In that case, you just place your backpack in line to hold your spot in line and then go do what you want.

Carrion is a lively town, As I approached the town, I could see two large a farming complexes, one north and the other right south of town. Those indicate this is a much stronger farming area. When I entered the town, the Monastery of Santa Clara was seen on the edge of town, then there was a large modern school of probably 7th through 12th graders, apparently all free for lunch time. From there, 2 blocks down was a great big Church, that housed the hostel I am at right now. I tried to find a place to get a good picture of the Church, but it is the first one I have seen that has a lot of trees and vegetation growing around it. The central part of the town is just north of the Church. There was a street market going on today, a lot of haggling being done and some really good looking and great tasting fruit being sold. The town has about 2,000 population, but seems bigger with the stores that it has, which indicates it is a hub for the smaller ag towns.

As I approach the half way point in this adventure, it is hard to believe that I have been absent from my normal life for almost 3 weeks now. As stated earlier, the hardest part mentally is missing family and friends. As I was talking to “H” (I gave up on his name) last night at dinner, the physical part of this is easier to conquer just by adjusting the distance or in my case, the load. The mental part has to be dealt with daily, which is easy to do, but it is always there. He missed his wife and he had two almost grown sons and they called him once a week. I thouht, boy I am lucky as I have tried to make sure I have gotten to talk to Sherry almost every day, thanks Whatsapp! (Whatsapp is supposed to pay me for that plug……) It is funny the things you think about that are special in your life when you have all day to think, just yesterday I was thinking how lucky I am to have such a great Church home and fantastic Sunday School class that are all friends, not just class members. We are also blessed with a great pastor, who dropped in before I left just to pray with me about my adventure, that is special to me.

Gotta go mentally prepare for the Sister Maria in the Sound of Music!

Matthew 18:20

continue to day 21