So who's out there? (Day 6)

I walked mostly alone today. Glenn and Jan had a different departure time and shuttled from their hostel to a different area. I departed Estella and had another day of rolling fields and vineyards. This took me through a winery where the fabled wine fountain was located.

I had a tiny taste and it seemed fine. It was 8:30 in the morning for craps sake!

As I walked alone I started to think about the other pilgrims around me. It’s an interesting assortment of people. There are some, but not many, US citizens. There are a surprising number of Canadians (eh?) and also quite a few groups of Irish. I’ve walked with folks from the UK and had a beer today with some nice young German guys (an awesome pilsner with lemon that my new German friend told me was popular in Germany, but only women drank it. I’m breaking down walls).

The majority it seems are Spanish speaking pilgrims but in truth I’ve never been to anything with this much national diversity. I’m always inspired by how people find a way to communicate with each other regardless of language barriers. A big smile and some patience can accomplish a lot. That and I’ve got mad pantomiming skills.

Other people I saw and met on the trail today included a married couple where the husband hikes along pulling his wife’s backpack in a little wagon contraption tied to his belt. The story is that she has a hip injury but they wanted to do this hike so this was the solution. Did I also mention they had hiked from Zurich? They had been hiking for a month before they got to Saint Jean. I was blown away.

Then I saw the next amazing thing - a blind man walking behind his wife holding on to a rear loop on her backpack. She whispered instructions when required and they simply walked along with everyone else.

I’ve seen young and old of all shapes and sizes. The people with roughly the same itinerary and pace tend to cluster together after a couple of days and the faces are now becoming more familiar. I always find it interesting how quickly a friendship can be developed when travelling. Perhaps it’s that when everything is so unfamiliar we are more open to forming these bonds. Perhaps it’s the shared experience of the travel. I had dinner tonight with a group of 12 people and if we were to have that same dinner in the States I believe that people around us would think we’d known each other for years. I would estimate less than 10% of what we talked about was the Camino but rather we shared stories about our homes, families, work, - basically the kind of conversations friends have. Some of our group (tribe, club, ??) are finished after tomorrow and it will be sad to see them go, which is really quite a statement considering I’ve know them for five days. I don’t really have a point here, just an observation on how easy it was a group of strangers to have a genuine fondness for each other in such a short period of time. I will be curious to see how this all develops as time moves forward.

On to the day. Today was a great hike. Michael Buble wasn’t too annoying but bandaging him is a nightmare. Did I mention he’s on the very bottom of my little toe? Not only can I barely reach him (because my hips are so Frozen they should sing Let It Go), I sure as hell can’t see him. He might as well be in the middle of my back. I was however able to get him taped up and he bothered me very little today. The heat was no joke but there was yet another food truck in the middle of nowhere and this one would’ve made Portland proud. It had a full grill, orange juice machine and TWO different kinds of beer ON TAP. I had a sandwich and knocked back a frosty lemon beer and then tackled the hill. I then proceeded to belch said lemon beer for the next 6K. Lesson learned. Lemon beer good. Lemon beer in high heat while strenuously exercising bad. I should stitch that shit on a pillow.

Tomorrow is a really long one in the heat so I’m going to stop rambling and post a couple of pictures. The lack of pictures in these areas isn’t because it’s not beautiful, it truly is. It’s just that a picture of a rolling hill taken with an iPhone looks just like another picture of a rolling hill taken with an iPhone.

Add “taking a selfie” to the long list of things I suck at.