5 apr

Walked another 39 kilometres today, from Acebo to Villafranca del Bierzo, making a total of 1251 kilometres.
Slept well in the aubergue. There were 17 people in the room, divided over 9 bunk beds. I slept above and slept well until the guy in the bottom part of the bed, deep in his seventies I think, started to move around and shake the bed after 6 o’clock. There were two snorers in the room, but the sound was vaguely familiar and earplugs do wonders.
I waited for the first rush on the showers to be over and then was on my way at 8.15, real early for my standards. There was a beautiful early fog hanging between the mountains. It was so serene. At one point I saw a deer jumping away in front of me and realized this was the first deer I’d seen in Spain, despite going through quite rural area’s. And then I seemed to hear deer, making a sound distantly familiar to frogs, but more subtle. I stopped to listen to it and made eye contact with a deer just three yards away, with just a bush in between. I kept looking the deer in the eyes and it kept looking back. Not afraid, not curious, just really paying attention. I got my phone out of my back pocket, opened it without breaking the eye contact, but then I had to look down to get the right app. The second I looked down, I heard the deer jump away. A lovely experience.
Later met a woman from Latvia who spoke a little French. She asked me why I walked the Camino. I answered I didn’t know, gotten tired of all the half-truths I’ve been telling over the past weeks. Why you?, I asked. St. Jacques asked me, she answered, which was a reason I hadn’t heard before. How?, I asked. It seemed all to have to do with dogs, or better a certain dog. A few months ago she wanted to get a new dog. At the dog store where she went she had a very special contact with this particular dogs. She was a real dogs person she said. I am absolutely not, which I didn’t tell her. The name of this dog turned out to be Jacques, or the Latvian name for Jacques which sounded more like Jakob. But that was not the only thing. When she received the passport of the dog, one of the names of the grandparents turned out to be Milky Way, which is the same as Compostella, like in Santiago de Compostella.
Very special I said, wondering if it was interesting or just weird to listen to these kind of stories. She was the slowest walker of anyone I have met. Started on the 3rd of march. I started thinking where I was. Somewhere around Figeac I figured, deep, deep in France. Again I realized there are no real benefits in slow walking.
By the end of the day I tried to call Julie to ask where she’d parked. When she answered she said she was in Villafranca. Why don’t you come and join me for a beer, I asked. Wrong city, she answered, mistakenly thinking that I would only arrive in Villafranca tomorrow. So we did have our beer and Merlin is parked next to a picturesque waterfall where Julie just saw a fish (trout, salmon) trying to jump up the waterfall. I had never seen a deer in the eyes for 20 seconds, and have never seen a fish jump up a river. But this trip has many firsts. 181 kilometres to go to experience more.