People and places

People and places



Last night it felt a bit strange at the albergue, beautiful place that it was. I don't seem to have fallen in with a 'lower speed' cohort on this Camino. Most others I meet seem to be doing 30km+ days so each night I am with different people. I realized this morning that maybe my 'slowies' are all staying in the bigger centers that I have been missing.



Then I ended up walking a while this morning with two lovely young women. First one was from Denmark. She had been walking with the same crowd, staying in the same places. But she had just done a long day to get ahead of the bunch as she wanted some space walking alone to think- that was what she had come on the Camino for.



Next I met a young Irish woman who walked the Camino five years back. She'd also just stepped ahead of a party central crowd. She was only walking a week or so, and some of them were saying she was not a true peregrina, walking for such a short time. But she knew what I've discovered, that when you've been there once, you soon slip right back into pilgrim mode. You notice every detail of the natural world around you. And you have memories of people you walked with, in the places you met them.



So Lyne, Denis and Francis were all my mind today. I still recognized the place where Francis caught up to us and began walking with us for a while. And Lyne and Denis, I still remembered the place where you took a rest stop with a bad knee at the top of the hill leading down to Santo Domingo, and then I never saw you again until Burgos... And today was the day when Francis and I both spent the night at Granon. All special memories of people with places.



And today finally I got to see those hens and rooster in the cathedral here in Santo Domingo. Last time I was here, the place was all closed up until Sunday Mass. And it was raining and I walked on until Granon...





Sent from my iPod