Sarria to Portomarín

The Camino has spent two days biting us, and today we bit back. =)

Yesterday turned out pretty good. First of all, I bought a sleeping bag. It´s warm and it rolls up small into a little bag and it wasn´t that expensive...grr...and I guess it´s probably about a pound, maybe less. But I´m happy to trade weight on my shoulders for weight on my mind. I am no longer worried about sleeping outside, if it comes to that, and that peace of mind is worth the money and the weight.

We went back up to the boys´ albergue to eat dinner, but they didn´t show, and today we don´t know where they are...ahead of us or here in town...don´t even know if they walked, or how Kasey´s temp turns out. If you guys are reading this, I hope KK is okay and we´ll see you in Santiago on the 10th.

Dinner was lame. I´ve decided my digestive issues are due to the TONS of oil and grease all our food seems to come with. So I decided today to go back to the good ol´ straightforward bocadillo sandwiches and try to avoid the grease. The food here is so hit-or-miss...in Triacastela I had AWESOME spaghetti...but yesterday´s was like soapy noodles in grease.

At one point the waiter came out carrying two tall bottles of water, the liter-and-a-half kind, taking them to another table, and they gleamed like bags of gold, and that´s how bad I wanted them. Did I mention that walking out of the field in Triacastela, back to the garage, I saw a shooting star? Usually I think of something huge to wish for, but when I thought about it, all I really wanted was a good night´s sleep. The Camino reduces your wishes to such simple things...it´s amazing. Water. Sleep. A cool morning. Strong legs and arms and lungs and back. Bread. A little meat, a cold beer. Fruit. A shower. A place in the sun, or a place in the shade, depending. So, so simple.

Anyway...got an awesome night´s sleep...too well, actually...we didn´t wake up till nearly 8, and it was almost 9am when we finished a quick breakfast in the hotel restaurant. (We shared the room with Yasmeen and a Dutchman [not a flying one] named Wem...so the cost was pretty manageable.) Before we left the hotel we decided to ask the receptionist if she´d help us try to make a reservation in an albergue in Portomarín. We weren´t sure they´d take one, but we may as well try. She made the call for us and asked for two beds, and was told that they´d hold them for us till 3pm. It was now 9am-ish and she claimed that Portomarín was a 4-hour walk. Uh...it´s 22km. Four hours for 22km is doable, but awful fast.... Anyway, no matter, we had six hours. No prob.

But then we looked out the window. RAIN!!! Dammiiiiiiit...back into the bags, rain gear, wrap my pack in my poncho, shift electronics into the raincoat pockets, cover Christa´s bag with the super-cool bag cover that came with hers (grr), and then on the road around 9:30am.

Well, turns out it wasn´t really raining. It was sort of a drizzle that quickly became nothing more than the mist, but it hung around till noon. I love mornings like this anyway, but when we´re walking, they´re PERFECT, as long as they´re not impeding some awesome mountain vista, which today they weren´t. But the cold misty mornings make everything look kind of magical, and when you get a forest path through farming villages, and your body temp stays down and you don´t have to suck a whole lot of water...well, the k´s go by pretty fast.

And let me tell you, I was FAST today. I don´t think I´ve ever felt so strong in my entire life. We had a lot of uphill this morning, and I seemed to devour every single hill. I´m amazed at how strong my legs are now, and I didn´t even have any foot issues (my pinkie toe was a dried crust this morning and you don´t even want me to describe it any further than that). I was unstoppable. I was passing newbies left and right, and even ran into the three Canadian women from Cacabelos...looking much healthier and in less pain.

We get cow traffic that early. At one intersection I passed a farmer driving a cow with a long stick...then I saw the calf. He looked wet. There was a car coming up the road, and suddenly the mama cow came hustling back down the road to bunt the calf out of the way, and after that, it seemed like the farmer had a hard time getting them both to go in the direction he wanted. I was going to pass right by, but when I saw how protective she was of her baby, I hestitated for a minute...do cows charge you if they think their babies are threatened?? Sigh...things my dad hasn´t told me about cattle farming yet....

The second time, I came up behind a farmer driving several cows up the road, and ended up in a rather one-sided conversation with him for several minutes (his side, and he didn´t seem to mind the monopoly). It was just cool to follow all these little roads and dirt tracks between stone fences and under tree canopies, past fields of cattle and crops, everything disappearing into the mist...I could´ve been in Ireland or Scotland or anywhere in the world.

I had left Christa far behind and my book said the 100km stone marker was coming up, so I found a place to stop and wait for her...which took about 8 or 10 minutes I guess. (Told you I was fast today.) I wanted to get a picture with her next to it because I knew it would have been a great experience when we saw it.

We didn´t see it. Somehow we missed it. I don´t know how. But when we stopped for a quick bottle of water, the marker stone said 99.5. I was pissed, but I wasn´t going back a whole half kilometer to see it. There had been a big group of people stopped on the path about that distance back, and I´d said as we came upon them, it must be up there...but as we passed them, I didn´t see anything. It had to be there. Sigh. So we got a picture next to 99.5.

In the bar where we got the bottle of water, we got news from Australia!! The bar book said ¨Skippy Norris was here today...4-8-08.¨ So Brad is probably a whole day ahead of us by now. We signed below him and hustled on. It was past noon by now.

We spent most of the day having no idea where we were, which was frustrating, and looking at the watch, which was more like a challenge than a hassle. We made lunch as quick as possible in Ferrerios and Christa left before I did, since she´s slower.

It took me about 15 minutes to catch her once I left. We had about 9km to go from our lunch spot and had 1:45 to do it in. Tough.

The road is covered in newbies. They are soft and pale and doughy...their feet hurt, their bags are uncomfortable or matching, their knees and thighs and ankles untrustworthy, they are loud, sometimes you see a woman walking with no bag next to a man with two. Today we declared them chum. Christa and I are sleek and dark and fast, with 700km in our strong thighs...our knees no longer betray us, and we can take the downhills fast with footing like mountain goats. We overtake them, devour them, leave them in our dust. It is a powerful feeling and we exalted in it.

It was a steep downhill and we could see Portomarín. 2.5k to go and 15 minutes. We´ll never make it. But the downhill was asphalt alternating with flat dirt and good footing. We charged. It´s not really a run, but we jog down them, packs tight against us, thighs and knees stronger than they ever were in the first weeks, and MAN we´re fast. Hit the bottom...uphill...cross the bridge and the albergue should be right on the other side. Ten minutes to go at the start of the bridge. Bridge takes 5 minutes and at the end are STAIRS. CRAP. Give me all the uphills you can throw at me, but NOT STAIRS. I charge. Christa is way behind me. I hit the top step of perhaps 40 and nearly die. A moment to rest, look behind, she is applauding from the bridge and laughing. Three minutes to go. Up more stairs. Signs pointing left, onward, down. Arrive, soaked with sweat and hotter than hell, out of breath and sucking water. 2:59. Lobby full of smelly pilgrims, laughing and joking with the hospitaleras. Soaking up our time. Christa arrives behind me. One of them finally looks at us. We give her name. It´s not in the book. They holler to someone else. The answer comes back... ¨Sí.¨ We´ve made it.

So tonight we have two bunk beds in an albergue with probably 160 beds, and no one without a reservation is being accepted. Todo completo. So THIS is the game. So be it, we´ll play it.

I wasn´t worried about getting a bed tonight. I was worried about all my clothes being dirty. I had to go two days in one shirt, which is much more of a problem than with pants. But everything´s clean now and hanging on the line...we´re waiting on her laundry, and then we´ll go find something to eat, or perhaps just throw ourselves into the river for a long-awaited swim.

Tomorrow, there is an albergue in our book in San Xiao (Still Spain or will I be in China tomorrow?) that claims to accept reservations. Hopefully we´ll go there...it´s a good goal, about 26km or so. Laundry should be good till right before Santiago on Friday. Can´t believe there´s so little time left, that we´ve come so far. 700km. Wow.

My German lessons continue. Today I got the days of the week and a song about the sunrise that Christa sings every morning. I know greetings, I´m hungry/thirsty, and ¨I have a cat,¨ which I resort to every time one of them says something to me I don´t understand...it´s my way of saying I have no idea, that´s all I got, and it cracks them up. Last night Yasmeen gave me her Spanish-German phrasebook...I was looking at Spanish phrases, trying to remember what they meant in English, and then trying to figure out how to pronounce them in German. It was pretty funny. At one point, Yasmeen said to the others in German, ¨Wow, give her something to study and suddenly the loud American is quiet.¨ Christa and Wem made her translate and she turned about six shades of pink, but it was funny.

All for now...so glad we get to relax a bit tonight instead of worrying about where we´re going to sleep and shower and wash clothes. Wish we knew where the boys were, but practicing being in the moment...here and now. Trying not even to think about where we go tomorrow till the morning...which is hard.

Catch you tomorrow, if I can...thanks for all the support in the comments, by the way, and love you all.