On just about every one of our Caminos I’ve had an opportunity to chat a little in Spanish with an elderly Galician. Today on our walk, we were walking by a house and a dog was barking at us loudly. We weren’t worried because he was behind a fence and just doing what dogs do. This man was walking towards us and started speaking to us, I think maybe in Gallego, the native language here, but I think he switched to Spanish because I understood him to comment about how noisy the dog was. I asked him if he lived in the village we were passing through and he said yes, “down below on the edge of the village”. He asked us about where we lived. After a little more conversation, I asked “Is it OK if I ask you how old you are”. He said 82. Charlie said “I’m 73,” I translated, and the man laughed. He then unbuttoned the top of his shirt to show us a scar and said he’d had heart surgery two years ago and he was out walking because his doctor “commanded” that he start walking. He looked quite healthy, I thought.
As we were saying adiós, I asked him if I could take his photo. He seemed quite happy for me to do so. I think he probably enjoyed telling his wife about that when he got home.