Hospital del Orbigo - Sueur de Quiñones

In an earlier posting we made reference to the challenge given to Spanish chivalry by a knight who was steadfastly refused by the object of his amorous intentions. On the river´s edge where for a monthy jousting contests were held, just beside the bridge across the river, reenactments take place each summer. This photograph portrays the scene.

Astorga

On the way to Astorga we stopped at San Justo de la Vega, the first town on the downslope from the meseta that separates Hospital del Orbigo from Astorga. The town is not particularlhy interesting, although I would not share that opinion with its residents, but it does contain a cast iron water fountain.

In 1992, the year our son John Anthony worked at the World´s Fair, Expo ´92, in Seville, the year in which he met his future wife Li, a picture was taken of the two of them drinking from a fountain. That picture became the cover to the invitation to their wedding in Mexico several years later. In 1993, when Bill Hunter, JA and I walked the Camino, we saw an identical fountain in San Justo. We intended to talk a photograph of it for Li, but lunch and a memory lapse intervened. Encarnita and I corrected that omission this time round.

John Anthony and Li, these photographs are for you both.

Astorga was an important cross-roads in Roman times, moving produce, materials and troops north-south and east-west. Later it gained importance as the point where the Via de Plata, the route for pilgrims on their way to Santiago from the south of Spain, join the French Road that brought pilgrims from across the Pyrenees. Its roman walls are immense, its cathedral high, and its episcopal palace designed by the Catalan architect Gaudi.

For us, however, the Camino is as much about people today as it is about structures they leave behind. People who are following the Camino as pilgrims, and people whose lives are conducted in the shadow of the Camino. On the way to Astorga we encountered a sport where pilgrims were leaving messages on flat stones for fellow pilgrims they expected to come along behind them. Encarnita penned one for Gillian who at that point we knew was still a few days back of us. We meant to alert her to look for it, but didn´t.

Nevermind, when she reached this point she stopped to see what people were saying, and found our message to her. The Camino is full of coincidences.

Lorenzo is a good example of why the Camino is people. Encarnita and I had a quiet dinner at a small restaurant in Astorga, El Caprichio, a family operation. Lorenzo was the front end of the restaurant, while his wife Begonia was in the kitchen cooking. As we sat there, enjoying an excellent eleven euro "pilgrims menu" with a half litre of excellent Bierzo wine, we watched the daily life of this city go by.

At a corner table were two young male pilgrims doing their best to pick up a young female pilgrim. Encarnita and I were betting on the outcome.

A local resident stuck his nose in the door as he walked by. Invited in by Lorenzo he indicated he still had one errand to run, but did give his order. When he came by twenty minutes later, dinner was on the table for him.

At another table Lorenzo´s son and teen-age daughter were having supper. If you have a restaurant, where else is the family going to eat?

Suddenly there is a minor commotion. Two Frenchmen are treated as conquering heroes as they enter the restaurant. They were known to Lorenzo, having walked the French route across the north to Astorga, before departing by mechanized transport for Merida several hundred kilometres to the osuth. From Merida they had walked north following the Camino de Plata, and were now back in Astorga. Lorenzo remembered them, and treated them royally.

When we left Astorga the next day, Encarnita and I stopped by the restaurant to say goodby. We were offered coffee before we all embraced and said our farewells.

The Blog is Reactivated

We last posted to the blog three weeks ago. We wanted to continue to keep everyone current with respect to our Camino, but arranging for access to the internet and free time to coincide was very difficult. After walking for seven or eight hours and looking for a place to put our heads down for the night, and to locate an understanding taverner who would provide a few tankards of beer, there was neither daylight nor energy left over. Besides, a few days after our last entry, Encarnita encountered a major, major surprise on the Camino, a surprise that kept us both busy. But more about that later.

We did finish the Camino, arriving in Santiago on Saturday, June 6th, in time for the noon pilgrims mass. It was a moving moment, marked by the realization that eight weeks constant walking had come to an end. It was also an occasion when the world´s largest incense burner (botafumeiro) was in full swing, effacing the odours rising from the bodies of the many pilgrims in attendance.

Now that we are in the south, basking under a 37 degree sun, it is my intention to reactivate the blog, posting every few days entries drawn from our very vivid memories of the Camino. They will be posted in chronological sequence with pictures added when I have more sophisticated access to the internet. For those of you who continue to check in to the blog, you will follow our trip as we walked it to its destination, but with a short time delay.