Month: April 2018

We have seen a lot of both. Both remind me of Southern California.

Anyone who grew up in Southern California knows the distinctive smell of eucalyptus trees. It is always great to smell it again. They are messy trees and are terrible in a yard but out in the forest they are apparently good trees. They have them all over Spain and Portugal. They originated in Australia.

I guess the Northern Coast of Spain is warmed by the Gulf Stream enough to avoid freezes because there are lots of palm trees here. Often in pairs, for some reason.

The town name is famous for its three lies: it’s not holy (Santi-) nor particularly flat (llana) and several kilometers from the sea. Sartre said it was “le plus joli village d’Espagne” (the prettiest village in Spain). The name is thought to be a corruption of Saint Juliana. Our guidebook says it is one of the most picturesque stopping points on the Camino del Norte. It is a cute little town. It is Saturday on a three-day weekend but it is rainy and off-season, still there are a fair number of visitors here. Way more than in the typical village we go through. But no problem getting into the restaurant for lunch or the hotel. The lunch was excellent. A 19 euro menu (the guide book said 26, maybe in the season), one of the best we have had. The hotel is very pretty and old but with modern improvements. It looks like old New Mexico construction. Vigas, etc.

I’ll bet the village is mobbed in the summer months. Last year on the Via Francigena we hardly saw anyone until we got to San Gimignano (the town with all the towers) which was crowded beyond belief. The streets there are lined with souvenir shops. Some here, too, but not too bad.

Santillana has cobblestone streets which are terrible to walk on (see the photos). Many streets have one small strip on the side which is flat but there is a lot of competition for walking there. We grudgingly give way to mothers pushing baby carriages (babies like motion, right?)

Post by Wynette: We ran into Fausto at a bar not long after we all got off the train. He is such a nice man. Charlie and I had café con leche and fried eggs and toast. Fausto had red wine and a pastry and then an espresso. Note his tiny cup. I was surprised that he said he likes Spanish coffee. We really like the coffee here, much more than in southern Spain, but figured an Italian would look down a little on Spanish coffee because, though Spanish coffee is good, of course, nothing compares to Italian coffee.

Post by Wynette: Today we walked 8 miles, taxied 5 miles, and trained 2 miles.

We took a taxi to get past the city sprawl of Santander. Then, after a few miles of walking, we took a two mile train ride from Boo to Mogro. Hopping the train at that point is kind of a Camino-sanctioned way to get over a railroad bridge that is considered unsafe to cross by foot. (The only other way across the river is to walk about 10 extra miles. Many pilgrims evidently cross the railroad bridge by foot but some have been fined for doing so.) A train stops at Boo (pronounced boh-oh) every 30 to 60 minutes. We had to wait about 40 minutes. There were six of us pilgrims on the train. We were told we could pay on the train but no one showed up to collect our money.

While waiting for the train we met Fausto from Italy. He spoke minimal English and Spanish but he understood Spanish pretty well. He would speak Italian into his phone and show us the translation. (Photo above.) He told us that in WWII, his father rescued and hid an American soldier who had parachuted from a plane.

Walking today was nice. One of our coldest days. You might notice in photos Charlie wearing his coat for the first time. We were about half mile from the coast but got some nice glimpses of the ocean and sandy beaches.

We both have T-Mobile phone plans that work automatically in Europe with no additional charge. It was nice to have data right when we got off the plane. But it is limited to 3G speeds, which is okay but a tad slow. So we went to Vodafone and paid 20 euros for four weeks with 3.5 Gbytes of data. These have worked fine. We are finding 4G coverage almost everywhere on the Norte. Plus every hotel and bar has WiFi, sometimes really fast.

Sometimes in solitaire games I change the rules a little. Some people might call this cheating but how can you cheat in a game against yourself? Another example is unlimited undos. I think of it as changing the rules to make it a better game for me. Still you can’t help but feel a little bit bad about it.

So far we have stayed in hotels and B&Bs every night (above is where we are tonight) and have not stayed in an albergue (pilgrim dorm) yet. Sometimes we feel a little guilty about it, like we are not real pilgrims. Also we only walk 7-10 miles a day and we sometimes feel a little guilty about that. Sometimes we are embarrassed when we talk to other pilgrims about where we started or how long we have been walking.

But it seems to me that this is similar to cheating at solitaire. We are just making the Camino rules so that it is the best possible Camino for us. Other people might want to do it differently.

There is an expression people on the Camino often use: “Everyone walks their own Camino.” People say this a lot but it is not clear how much people mean it. We continually shock people when we tell them how far (or not far) we walk each day. There is a lot of bragging about how far one goes each day. It is clearly higher status to go farther.

I remember getting on a bus on our first Camino with someone who was walking long days to keep up with a group of pilgrims he had hooked up with but his blisters had gotten so bad he was forced to take a rest and take the bus for a stretch. A major reason people walk farther than they want to is to keep up with a group they are walking with.

This morning we took a taxi five miles to the outskirts of Santander to avoid city walking and to make a nice eight mile day to Cudon where we are staying tonight.

We are really glad we skipped some parts of the Camino so far that consisted of walking on busy roads.

When I have trouble going to sleep at night I listen to Buddhist talks and the mindfulness usually puts me right to sleep. Last night I heard Joseph Goldstein tell a story about how he lived communally from ages 27-40 and decided to move into a house at Barre that had been donated for his use. He moved in and was immediately beset by doubts that he should not be living in the house and it was not right for a dharma teacher. He looked at it closer and realized that he didn’t feel that it was wrong but that he was embarrassed. Then he decided that he would rather be embarrassed than move out of the house. Our thoughts exactly.

photos.app.goo.gl/WDTSxKT5Zag8yrFE9

Okay, it’s true, we do buy the occasional pastry. We stopped at the pastry shop just across from the Jardin Secreto (our hotel) yesterday and got to talking to the clerk. It turns out he had walked the Camino del Norte four years ago, from Santander to Santiago. We asked if he had thought of walking the Camino Frances first and he said why would he do that when the Camino del Norte is so beautiful.

It definitely is beautiful. The Camino Frances has its charms but no ocean views. The main advantages of the Camino Frances are that it is the original Camino, it has lots of pilgrim services, people along it know all about it, and you can find lots of people to hang out with.

In our first week we ran into two Dutch girls who were also walking their first Camino and were on the Camino del Norte.

You may have heard one of the things Comey is accused of is sharing a memo that was later declared to be classified.

Yesterday we were at the East Market in Santander and Wynette needed to use the bathroom. The photo shows the bathroom. It requires 20 cents to enter and looked like you see it in the photo. She put in 20 cents and went through the turnstile but the door was locked. She jiggled it some and knocked on the door and got a yelled response from the other side. While Wynette was waiting, a guy came in from the side and put a sign on a stand in front of the turnstile saying the bathroom was closed. Then a woman came out of the door looking a bit peeved. She went over to the sign and held it up and read out to Wynette telling her something like “Can’t you read? The bathroom is closed.” Just like Comey, after the fact declaration of closeness. Wynette did get to use the bathroom.

The fronds were thick enough that it would be a good shade tree. Not necessary today as it was cold, overcast, and windy.