27 mar

Walked another 35 kilometres, from Santo Domingo de la Calzada to Villareal Montes de Oca. Making a total of 904 kilometres.
There was some snow today. On the ground at the end of the day. But the day itself was basked in sunlight. A very welcome change from the past dreary days.
I passed the guy who predicted snow today. ‘Quite different than you expected’, I told him. He just grumbled. I think he was surprised he just had survived another hill.
Then I walked into a girl from Brasil named Rosita. It is her second Camino. I told her about the girl who was walking it for the ninth time now. Rosita couldn’t imagine that, although she herself was convinced she wouldn’t walk it again, last year just after she had finished.
Didn’t walk too long with Rosita though. I think I take quite a lot of photographs. It is nothing compared to Rosita. Every little change of the landscape has to be captured and every landscape changes a little bit after every few steps, she decided. I wonder if she reached the end of the field at the end of the day. I ‘buen camino-ed’ her after the fourth time she stopped. I was fascinated though with her camera, which she carried on her wrist, like a watch, with a plastic cover. ‘Rain doesn’t stop me from taking photographs. She was luckily in no hurry to reach Santiago, but I wonder if she’ll be there before Julie and I will walk down the square on the 6th of may. That is, after then having three weeks of doing different things.
Then I saw Jose from Guadelajara and his buddy Tejo from the Canary Islands again.
They had stopped at a little resting place and were ready to go on. ‘Giuseppe’, I heard them calling me, before I saw them. We walked together for the rest of the day. Jose has decided he will speak a little english before Santiago and I’ll speak a little spanish. Tejo is the translator between us. Ciguena is stork, sol sun and lluvia (say lubia) is rain. To be continued. We seem to have the same walking rhytm. They both started walking last thursday in SJPDP. A Manana we said when we shook hands in the Aubergue Municipal where they will be staying tonight and where I got a credential for my Camino passport.
We walk together but are silent for long times. Which suits me. There is plenty of time to look at the landscape and wonder why the broad beans are not as far developped as in southern France. Or why the Spanish have indulged in all these new housing developments that are mainly empty now. Some of them are not even finished, creating ghost towns. In France I walked for 700 kilometres without once seeing a housing development.
And why are there so many trucks here in Spain? Isn’t the economy supposed to be in crisis-mood? They just speed by the roads that we cross now and then. Quite dangerous really. I’ve never seen so many storks also, which I will call Ciguena from now on. At least for the next 523 kilometres that I still have to go.