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.