The day started bad, got worse, got much better, then absolutely fantastic, then frustrating.  That is the Camino for you.  First, I have to say that it’s now 10:30pm and my faithful proofreader has been asleep for an hour. This post will not make sense in some places.  Just improvise.

Weather forecasters predicted a cloudy night last night and all day today but no rain.  expert Melanie said it was going to rain last night but it would be mostly sunny today without raining on our walk.  Guess who was right?  I’ll give you one clue… I’ll never hear the end of just how perfect my wife is.  We couldn’t find dinner last night until at 8:00pm and we walked back to our hotel in the rain. This morning, I looked out the window after getting up and the ground was wet but it wasn’t currently raining.  We went down to breakfast and not only did we have to face the most surly barmaid in the world, we also watched five pilgrims walking in dripping wet with full rain gear on.  Fortunately the rain stopped minutes later and we left soon after.  We had plenty of clouds at the beginning of the day but it got very sunny about 10:00qm.  Yadda, yadda, yadda… Melanie is right again.

Entering Tosantos, only 4.7km into the day”s walk, Melanie told me she had to use a bathroom in one of the bars.  We walked into a little bar/cafe and it had what looked like a very small, single person men, and ladies toilets but it’s possible the men’s toilet may have also has a urinal.  Melanie started to take her backpack off and put it down  with her walking sticks and hat.  Just as she was heading to the door, a tall American man walked it the bar and went straight to the ladies toilet.  Melanie said to him that he was walking into the wrong toilet but he ignored her.  She said it again, a bit louder in ase he was as deaf as he was stupid.  He turned and asked, “does this bother you?” as he walked in the ladies toilet and locked the door.  The men’s toilet, one meter further away was vacant.  As the door closed, a nearby male pilgrim said “hey, the is thee Camino, everything is communal”.  Another man said “that really doesn’t matter anymore”.  A woman pilgrim chimed in too with maximum support “Just use the men’s toilet”.  Melanie patiently waited until the guy came out then she started to go in but waited another couple of minutes as the smell inside disípated. Then she went in and she and used the loo.  Unfortunately, the ass before her had used all the toilet paper.  I didn’t think of it at the time but I should have told Melanie (loudly) not to complain, that she probably identifies as a lady.

The walk did not go as expected, I had completely forgot about the Monte’s de Oca. These were steep forested hills that robbers used to hide in and steal from pilgrims. While the day was mostly frail there was one climb of about 300m with several very steep section starting just after Villafranca Montes de Oca.

The end of the walk was unusual because we knew there was no place to stay in San Juan de Ortega except the monastery from hell (rat infested, old rotten mattresses, bed bugs, cold showers, etc) so we had planned to get a taxi to Burgos, stay here for two nights and taxi back to San Juan in the morning to walk into Burgos.  We expected that to be very difficult but it went smoothly, other than the taxi fair of 57€ that will be repeated in the morning.

We met many pilgrims along the way but the most memorable included the Brazilian girl who, when I started to sing the famous Brazilian football chant, she started singing the entire, patriotic song that it is based on. She had a good voice!  Another fun group we passed several times – and also got passed by them several times -were a Korean group with two guys and two girls.  They were enjoying their Camino as much as anyone. We also met two Malaysian girls; the one from Johore was struggling badly but the one from Malacca was a riot and carrying far too much gear. She explained though that she had been in Iceland with her friends but then came down to walk the Camino.  She had to carry all the stuff including a lot of winter clothes. 

This afternoon, we did the laundry at a laundromat that was close to a bar.  The plans was to have a drink while the clothes got washed and dried and also use the time to at least start the blog.  Instead, stuck in this tiny bar, we spent the next two hours laughing continuously with our brand new friends, Romi, the Bavarian woman on the first Camino, Nils and Camilla, who I will come back to a moment and a Kentucky fireman, his wife and a young widow of a fireman who were there remembering their husband / friend.  After getting Romi to join us, we were having such a good time talking about the Camino and her home village.  That is when Danish Nils and Brazilian Camilla came in the bar.  They started to sit at the table next to us but immediately recognized that they should join the fun crowd when asked so we made room for them.  They aren’t actually walking the Camino though.  They had walked it exactly ten years ago and they had met at this exact bar while both were injured while walking a Camino partially to get over a divorce / separation. After recovering, walking together for the following three weeks, they returned to their home countries. Realizing their shared misery of not being together, they started a long distance relationship and eventually, a close distance marriage.  They were celebrating by driving around Spain and walking short distances that were their favorite memories of the Camino.  They were hysterical together but also curious how long Melanie, Romi and I were friends (ten minutes).  Later, the Kentucky crew came in and sat at the next table.  They wanted to know what all the laughing was about at our table and were amazed by Nils’ and Camilla’s story. They wanted a picture of the two of them. Then they asked how we all became friends and when the reply started “well 15 minutes ago…”, they want a photo of the five of us.  By dinner time, we all had to leave for our respective plans and there was much hugging and wishing of safe travels and Buen Camino.

Of course all the fun lead to a late dinner for Melanie and I then we tried to book rooms for the next few nights which proved very difficult.  We are still in a wave of pilgrims and many of our preferred places are selling out.  Its frustrating but we are dealing with it.

Once again, I’m half asleep as I type on an iPad mini.  Please forgive the mistakes.

Peace y’all.  Good night George, Leo and Stella.