Finding treasure on the Camino de Santiago

SATURDAY 18th JUNE 2016 – Fromista to Carrion de Los Condes

Km’s walked – 20.33 ; steps taken – 31007 ; floors climbed – 1

“Little by little, one travels far!” J.R. Tolkien

Babar wished Monkey a sad goodbye as Sarah and I left for the bus station which was down the street from our hotel. Sarah sadly had to leave for home.  My heart was aching, it’s crazy how “reliant” you become on someone and how comforting it is to have a special person close to you for this amazing journey. I know I came to do most of it alone, but I have had the privilege (which I am so grateful for) of spending endless uninterrupted hours with two beautiful incredible friends. Wow.(Cynics, stop reading now).  We take so much for granted and we hurry our lives so much when the routine of day to day kicks in, we seldom take time to finish real conversations ask just to listen to special people. Time! Wow, what a gift it is.  I hugged Sarah hurriedly with tears in my eyes and sped off back to finish packing in my hotel. I felt really down.  Luckily for wifi and what’s app, I had Warwick motivating me to get going.  I put on my beautiful crown and lugged Babar (there was a lift, yay!) downstairs and I was off.

I had arranged to meet Jennie in the square and we had agreed to walk together.  We have a good rhythm, we talk, we laugh, we walk, we go quiet, and then we start again. It’s good. The walk was lovely, and again just beautiful.  I stop frequently to take photos as everything is just so amazing to me.  It takes me 6 hours with a half an hour break to walk 22 or so kilometers.  In Cape Town I can do that in four.  Everything is just to beautiful.  

We were walking quite fast as we wanted to visit an old  Knights Templar church in Villalcazar de Sirga (Pop, 200) which was due to close at 13h00.  We made it and it was worth seeing, we even got a stamp for our passports. As an aside, Jennie is delightful as I’ve said, and somewhat naive. I just love her she makes me laugh a lot.  So, she confesses to me after seeing the church, that she had read that if you put a Euro in the slot the frescos of St James’s life come alive and alight, and in true Disneyesque style, she really thought that there when she put that coin in she was going to see animatronics.  She had imagined St James coming up to greet her etc, etc. I laughed and laughed when she confessed this to me.  Just delightful.

I had read on Facebook from Maria, someone I met in Orrison, who is two days ahead of me as she doesn’t take rest days (she’s half my age just saying), that there is an amazing Alburgue (a donation type Pilgrim hostel) run by Augustine nuns and that they did singing in the evenings. I was determined that I was going to find it and gatecrash, as Maria had said it was her best night on the Camino so far. Jennie said she was keen, so as we entered the Carrion de Los Condes, which looked alive and really vibrant, we went on a mission to find Santa Maria Alburgue.  We found it quickly, we asked about the nuns singing and we were given a whole program.  At 17h30, there would be vespers (nuns singing) in the church ent door, at 18h00 there would be community singing in the Alburgue, at 19h00 there would be a, wait for it, FREE, Yes, Free, Classical Spanish guitar concert in the church (bloody hell), and at 8h00, mass and at 8h45, a pilgrim blessing in the church.  A lot of entertainment, but so worth it.  

The singing nuns in vespers were beautiful, the singing nuns in the Alburgue which we gate crashed were so awesome, I was crying the whole time, they had such beautiful energy

 and were so authentic and real. So caring. They got everyone to introduce themselves, and their purpose for doing the Camino.  We collected, Alaska, Norway, USA (x5), Finand, Germany, Canada, Italy and Australia. There was an entire family doing it together (grandfather, father, son and daughter, just lovely).  There is also a mom and her 10 year old son doing it (not sure if there are doing the whole thing).

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When the nuns were done, they invited us to the free guitar concert in the church next door. It was amazing.The. Guy playing for us played for one hour and it just flew by. He was brilliant. So skilled, just beautiful and so easy on the ear. 

After the concert they had a mass in Spanish (it is Saturday night after all). I skipped the mass, I thought I might freeze to death so I left to go and get warm clothes on. I returned at 8h30 for the Pilgrims blessing.The Pilgrim’s blessing was beautiful. I cried. The priest said everything in Spanish and then read it from a page in English, I was overwhelmed.HE invited us to come forward for the blessing by the nuns or himself, the nuns presented us with a small cut out star, that represented our possibilities, our guidance and a symbol of the skies we follow to Sanitago, as well as some other stuff I never got. The priest invited us to come into the back room ((can’t recall the name now) to get a stamp. If we wanted it. Of course we did.  

And here is when my troubles began.  I opened my Credential (pilgrims passport) for  my stamp, and it took me a few minutes to register, but I  suddenly realised I had Sarah’s credential and she had mine. Mine was almost full, this one only had about 8 blocks filled. I started hyperventilating as I need it for Sanitago to get the 800km Compostela that I wat. Jennie reassured me as best she could and reminded me that we had DHL etc., but also teared up for me. We went to dinner, I could not order till I had spoken to Warwick. I cried and cried, poor Warwick. He assured me I would get it back. A very horrible end to a spectacular day. I fell asleep reminding myself that my OCD streak and attention to detail in everything is a good thing. I lost focus the night before Sarah left and did not check the passports once they were stamped. I just put them away on Friday night without checking.

Tomorrow I walk alone. . With my Springsteen, Denver, and Sound of music of course.

CAMINO GIFTS; my new song from Warwick, just in time to make me smile, (Shanghai Breezes by John Denver), singing nuns (straight from the Sound of Music), a free very good guitar concert, the endless beauty around us, the weather which is not too hot, and Jennie delighting me often.