Boadilla to Carrión de los Condes

Yes, we´re in Carrión. And that´s exactly what we are today and tomorrow...carrion. We´re stuck here till tomorrow night. If we´d arrived on any other day but a Saturday, we would be in Terradilla de los Templarios, looking at a Templar castle and maybe even catching the boys (it seems EVERYONE on the Camino has seen them but us). But it´s Saturday, and tomorrow is Sunday, and like every day from 2pm to 5pm, life grinds to a halt in Spain on the weekends. It´s a very enviable and relaxing custom, but maddening as well when it doesn´t match up with your plans, or if you´re an American and are used to 24-7 everything. Sigh. Nothing for it but to wait. God knows what my mind will chew on if I have nowhere to walk, and it´s going to be hard enough to get on that bus tomorrow after SEVENTEEN days of straight walking. We´re at mile marker 420 from Santiago at the moment, and tomorrow, since the only bus is a 7pm to León, we´ll jump 95km at once. Not the plan, but as we said many times tonight in our English-French dinner conversation, c´est la vie.

The walk today. It was gorgeous out of Boadilla. The sunlight was falling just right when we hit the fork in the road and chose to walk along the 18th century canal. It was such still water, but still travelling along with us through the reeds. In my mind, I walked beside donkeys braying and clopping along, protesting against the weight of the barges they pulled from both sides of the canal. It was an iPod morning for both of us, and Loreena McKennitt was perfect for the setting. Skip and I agreed that we see no sign of this horrid monotonous meseta we keep hearing about. Granted...we´ll skip most of the hardest days tomorrow, but still, these three days we charged into it have been gorgeous.

We got to Frómista...the church there was near the top of my list. We walked across a dam when we got there...part of the 17th century canal and moving water 14 vertical meters. It was quite a shot, standing on this tiny little bridge across the top, with the water exploding below us and pouring off of four or five shelves before it went back to its placid, sluggish pace at the bottom. It was still misty and sunlight fell in rays through the treetops. One part we loved was that, near the top, hundreds of little streams of water were bursting through the brickwork...Skip and I agreed that in our countries, that would be a major concern and the engineers would be brought right back at once.

The church was great, though we found two wrong ones before we found the one I was looking for. (By the way, Skip had a beer WITH BREAKFAST. 9:30 AM. Sigh. Can´t take him anywhere.) The church looked like a small castle, Romanesque (like all of them here, in every single little town, no matter how small), and lined along the eaves with hundreds of little stone carvings of animals and people and symbols...one of the things that makes this one so interesting is that it has both Christian and pagan themes. I got lots of pictures that I want to blow up when I get home. I was hoping to stall us in Frómista till 10, when the church was supposed to open, but at about ten till, I went back to where the Spice Girls were having breakfast across the street and they said he´d gone just a moment before because he thought I´d left him. So, no inside, no stamp. Sigh. Oh well. Like my Aunt Carolyn says, it just means I´ll have to come back another time.

The rest of the day was largely unnoteworthy, except for one thing. One of Skip´s top-of-the-list experiences he wanted from the Camino was to walk through a field of sunflowers fully open, and today he got his wish. We´ve passed several such fields, but they´re always spotted with just a few open blooms, and this one was full on...an absolute riot of yellow and green. I took his cameras and he waded in, hip deep, into the huge, bobbing, yellow heads and spread his arms, grinning like a little kid. I got some great shots, some from standing atop a stone irrigation trough next to the field (I´m so glad I got some photo savvy somewhere earlier in my life...he´s quite the photog and I´m glad he´s so confident in my ability to take pictures that are framed well and turn out the way he wants). We switched and he got some great ones of me, too...then, giggling like kids, we took pictures of each other taking pictures of each other. It was intoxicating. I got one of a tall, tall sunflower against the blue sky, and another of one that wasn´t open yet but was like a green sunburst waiting to pop open. What a beautiful experience. Ten years from now, the email...¨Skip...remember that sunflower field?¨ lol.

The rest of the day was slow. We walked fast, but lingered long everywhere (like in the sunflowers), so we were just coming to Carrión at 4pm. The last two stretches were tough, but we ¨smashed ´em,¨ as he says. We did a 6km bit in 55 minutes. Arrrgh.... =)

Carrión is nice, but frustrating as hell, as I´ve already said. Skip was afraid I was gonna blow my top. I was back and forth between the information booth, the barman who sells the bus tickets, and an old man on the street for what felt like FOREVER, trying to figure out why there was no timetable, and why the (non)information booth didn´t match up with the barman. It was MADDENING!! We were hoping like I said yesterday to just make two little hops and still do a day´s walking each time...but now we´re going to be spinning our wheels, Camino roadkill, till 7pm tomorrow!! We´ll get in late to León, see the cathedral in the morning, and walk right out, and hopefully have a place to stay in between.

Speaking of places to stay, I´ve found another beautiful albergue for the top of the Camino list. We´re staying with the Benedictine sisters in the church in Carrión. The name escapes me now...there are apparently three church hostels, so I´ll have to put it up tomorrow. But they are lovely, lovely people. True Esprit du Chemin. Habits and everything. They brought in little children for a big singalong before the mass...then had a mass...then had a FEAST with about 30 people. Skip and I were able to catch Hank, Mimi, and Jocelyn cooking dinner in time for us to go to the market, get two chicken legs, and get back in time to join them...we brought wine and chocolates and pineapple and cherries for dessert. It was a wonderful dinner, somewhat complicated since Mimi speaks no English and Skip and I speak no French, so Jocelyn and Hank translated all throughout.

Mimi story: She has pajamas that consist of a shirt and shorts...the shirt says really big, ¨RICH FAMOUS SEXY.¨ What it really says is, ¨If you want to sleep with me, you must be RICH, you must be FAMOUS, and you must be SEXY.¨ And till yesterday, Mimi had no idea what it said. She is 62 and is a very spunky little French lady with an awesome sense of humor, and so that story was just perfect for her. =) She says those pajamas sell really well in France but not in the States.

Jocelyn story: Jocelyn is 53...not 58, like I said under her picture. Mon Dieu. I was so embarrassed!!! Sorry, Jocelyn!!!

With our hop, we´ll lose Hank and Mimi and Jocelyn for good. Very sad. They´ve been with me the whole way.

The nuns have let me stay up past curfew to write this blog, since I snuck my euro into the computer machine before they could tell me it was time to go to bed. Easier to get forgiveness than permission. But it´s winding down, so I better go. GOD what am I gonna do with myself tomorrow.... Skip´s threatening to tie me up somewhere so I don´t drive him crazy. There´s a river, apparently...maybe we´ll go for a swim.

Sunday night, León, and Monday, Villar de Mazarife. In case anyone on the Camino is reading.

PS - My brother is AWESOME!!! JUST PASSED HIS MASTER ELECTRICIAN´S TEST!! GO MIKE!! =)=)=)