October 2014 – Page 3 – The Way-Slow Way

In Santiago

Charlie and Wynette. We took the bus to Santiago today from Ponferrada. It was a low key day for us. We had a good 4 hour bus ride then walked to our hotel then to a restaurant we liked from our last visit here. After eating, we walked to the cathedral. Things seemed quiet there. Even the bagpipes didn’t seem so loud. It was fun to see pilgrims arriving in Santiago, imagining what they might be feeling. We hoped we’d see some of the pilgrims we had met at the beginning (mid-september) who were traveling the typical stages because they’d be arriving right about now. But we didn’t see any familiar faces.

Both towers of the Cathedral are being renovated:

Here is St. James at the entrance:

And another saint inside.

Photos Day 35, Oct 21, Ponferrada to Santiago

More at

https://www.dropbox.com/sc/5zu4piaxk2w01zz/AACVVCkjzTYuD8luUyqphLoba

Trust

Charlie. Societies work best when there is a high level of trust. We have found that in Spain. You almost never pay right away when you get a coffee or food at a bar. They let you sit there as long as you want even if you are outside and they are inside. When you are ready to leave, you seek them out to pay and you sometimes have to remind them what you had in a busy place.

We have pretty much stopped asking the price of anything. Everything is about what you expect it to be, or less. Some things are amazingly cheap.

At hotels and albergues some pilgrims leave their backpacks in the hall or out front for the transfer services to pick them up. Then they are left out again at the destination. We often see packs or suitcases sitting unattended. We have never heard of a problem either in a book or from other pilgrims. If there was a theft you would hear about it. Stories like that travel fast among pilgrims.

Hello Goodbye

Charlie. We have been running into some of the same people over several days lately. It is always fun to see people again and we are sad that we won’t see any of these people again after we jump to the Camino Finisterre. But there we will see some new people.

We realized that the Camino is all about saying goodbye. You meet pilgrims and people in the towns and the next day you must say goodbye and move on. Sometimes you see people again but then you have to say goodbye again.

I guess there is some kind of life lesson there but it is what it is.

Camino Transition

Charlie. Today we finished our second walk on the Camino Frances. Tomorrow we take the bus from Ponferrada to Santiago and the day after that we start walking the Camino Finisterre.

We walked 235 miles from Pamplona to Ponferrada in 35 days, walking 33 of those days and staying in 34 different towns. We averaged 7.1 miles a day for the days we walked.

The weather was quite good generally. We had 3-4 days with some rain and only one really hard rain. It was pretty hot for the first couple of weeks and getting pretty cool the last two weeks but today it was 80 in Ponferrada and the 10 day forecast is for more warm weather.

The original plan was to walk all the parts we had skipped last time but we ended up skipping pretty much the same parts. We found it quite enjoyable to walk the parts over again and remember what it was like the last time. Memory can be amazingly specific. It was not unusual to say “I remember that around the next turn there is a cement bench and we stopped there for a snack and talked to that German couple from Munich who we had talked to in Hornillos the previous night”.

This may sound like we were trying to recreate the last Camino but it was not like that. We enjoyed the memories and expanded the experience with new events. We had to leave many towns before we wanted to last time. Going through them again allowed us to complete the experience and make it more satisfying. The balance between the old and the new was just right for us.

We are sad to be ending this part but are already getting excited about the new Camino. We already made a reservation for the first stop out of Santiago.