The Way-Slow Way

Jane from England.

More at https://www.dropbox.com/sc/qxrhf893igblsm2/AACxAXmabyjDydQ-e093OTDQa

Approaching Castrojeriz.

Wynette. In Hontanos.

Wynette and Charlie. This place is beautiful. Completely deserted. In San Antón, near Castrojeriz. Notice that the highway goes through the arch.

We walked around to the back and found these three arches:

And a view of the bell tower through a window :

As far as we could tell, this is the only inhabited house in San Antón:

Charlie and Wynette. On the edge of the village, far from the center of town. Above, approaching the church, ruins of castle high on hill in the background. Then closer:

We were told it is rarely open so weren’t able to go in.

In front, a rose window:

On the front wall of a church in Castrojeriz.

The first one was in Navarra, now we are in the Burgos region of Castillo y Leon. But there are still plenty of falling down buildings along the Camino. Here is another one, kind of beautiful in its ruination.

And a ruined hay barn, close up.

We are in Castrojeriz, a picture book town, see next post.

Wynette. The nature of the Camino is such that most people cannot dawdle much. Most people have fewer than five weeks and a goal to get from St. Jean to Santiago (500 miles) completely on foot. They have to start early each day and cover the miles fast to be sure to get a bed at the end of the day. I think that is such a cool thing to do. If I were younger or much fitter I would have loved to have that goal even though it would be a huge challenge.

Charlie and I have eight weeks and I am not up to the physical challenge of 15+ miles a day, so we’ve chosen to do a different kind of Camino. We are trying to be aware when we are rushing, whether when walking or packing or getting ready in the morning or doing the afternoon chores: charging phones, doing laundry, choosing and reserving next place to stay, maybe shopping for food and cooking a lunch or dinner. (Hard life!)

Sometimes we rush because we want to get out early to beat the heat or enjoy the early morning light, but mostly out of habit and when there is no good reason. When we are feeling rushed we might not stop to put on jackets even if cold. Or take them off when hot. Or tighten a shoelace. Or fix a hot spot that might become a blister. Or admire a church or bird or flower or view or a garden, building, cairn, or message some creative person left behind. Or chat with another pilgrim. (In this case it is usually they who are rushing past us.) Or chat with a local person. Or explore something interesting just off the path.

We both read a nice book about the Camino by Joyce Rupp named Walk in a Relaxed Manner. At first I thought that was a strange, awkward title but now I like it and it is my walking mantra. It sounds contradictory, but I know one can walk in a relaxed manner and still enjoy a brisk walk. One can get a lot done and still be relaxed. So, we are having fun exploring this.

Charlie. There seems to be more wifi access on the Camino this year than in 2013. Just about every bar, hotel and albergue has it. Since I am taking photos of markers I have a lot of photos to upload, far too much for the 1.6 GB of phone data we have. It takes an hour or two to upload the photos each day.

All this wifi creates a naming problem. Sometimes it is the name of the bar or hotel. Sometimes it is something like ORANGE_74AF presumably the factory set name.

The password is given to anyone who comes in and is often posted on the wall. I have seen: 1234567890123, 0123456789, 123456 and others like that. Here at the Albergue El Puntido it is “elpuntido” the most common convention.

In the last place we had the slowest I have ever seen. A photo that normally downloads in a minute took over an hour. Tonight we have the fastest one we’ve seen.

Mostly the wifi is slow and the signal weak. Often it is not usable in the room only in the common areas.

Mobile data is okay in most places, sometimes 4G, usually 2G, sometimes worse or nonexistent.

The Meseta has been bad for data and even phone service. We had to use a landline pay phone here in Hontanas to make a reservation for tomorrow.

Charlie. Wynette read in an albergue review about a woman yelling at a pilgrim because they stayed at a private albergue in Rabé instead of the municipal one and that they weren’t a real pilgrim and that her albergue was open to everyone.

We got to Rabé and had a reservation at the private albergue. Walking back to the bar we passed the municipal albergue shown above and asked the woman sitting there where the bar was. She started talking about how her albergue was open to everyone and essentially she said her pilgrims were truer. She mentioned how the bar was owned by the brother of the woman who owned the private albergue. She wasn’t yelling but we think it might be the same woman.

Later we were talking to a Swedish woman we had met before (shown below)

and she said someone in our albergue, the private one, had told her that they had first gone to the municipal albergue and the woman had questioned her for half an hour before letting her into the albergue and she had fled to the private one. So the Albergue manager seems to be a strange one.

The day before we met our “angel” of the Camino (previous post) she had also warned us about the private albergue in Rabé and how true pilgrims didn’t stay there and the municipal was open to everyone.

So something is going on here. Some kind of feud between albergues in Rabé.

As we were walking into Rabé we asked a guy how to get to our albergue and he said his sister Tina ran it and took us there. He looked like a guy who ran the bar in Rabé that we had seen on our previous trip. We asked Tina if her brother owned the bar and she said yes. On going to the bar we found and see the guy who was the one we remembered but not the one who directed us. So Tina has two brothers and they own the Albergue and the bar and maybe are some kind of local mafia and that is part of the feud.

Anyway lots going on in Rabé.