Walked another 27 kilometres, from Roncevalles to Larrasoana. Making a total of 699 kilometres.
I set the alarm at 7AM. Which gives me plenty of time to sleep, because on most evenings I collapse around 10 PM. There are nights when I wake up around 1PM and wonder why it isn’t morning, but most nights I just need the sleep.
I climb over Julie to turn on the heater and start the water to boil. Then climb back in bed and start to read something. When the water boils, I wake up Julie, who has not waken up from all the movement or has gracefully fallen back asleep from the interruptions. We have code words for coffee. Julie will say ‘Joe’ (A cup of Jo is Rezacian for a cup of coffee), and I can either answer ‘No’ or ‘Go’ depending on my need for more coffee. We’ve really made our communication much more efficient during this trip. Wait till you hear our shower secret messages.
I left after 9 for the 2nd day of the Camino. Which is much later than the other pelegrins who stayed at the official ‘Hopital’. They will tell stories about a Japanese who will have his alarm go off at 6, and won’t be able to find his phone to turn it off. Or about Korean that start walking before dawn with mining lamps on, waking uop everybody in the dormatories in the process.
Gradually I was catching up with most of the people that started in SJPDP at the same time as me. There were these two women, without backpacks, who were at the blessing mass yesterday, and who needed a serious rest after only 3 kilometres of walking.
And then there was Annemie, a Flemish woman who’s lived for many years in the United States (now Santa Fe) and who’s walking the Camino for the second time now. And four young kids, Claire’s age, from North Carolina, and two young Koreans with an older (my age) woman. And a guy from Cleveland with his 11-year old son.
After I arrived in Larrasoana, Julie had just arrived and parked Merlin opposite the church, we met James, an Irish guy who’s great in a reliable Irish way. Not soon after we met him we found a place that sold beer. And gradually the whole Camino community of ‘starting the 19th of march’ joined us. A young guy from Chili; a father, his daughter and her friend from New Zealand; a middle aged German with amazing white baby curls hair; the Cleveland father and son, the North Carolinians. And we had a jolly time describing this iffy downslope and if everybody saw the same Basque guy on crutches trying to fix a fence he had broken.
Some of these casual encounters will become bonds forever, it seems. But my backpackless pace is higher than people with serious bacpacks can keep up with. Tomorrow I’ll leave most of these newfound friends behind. But not after meeting them one more time after I’ve left later than them again tomorrow morning. 724 kilometres to go and meet other people.
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