Too Many Stories to tell and soooo Many new Experiences

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Have had so many new experience - some amazing and some .... well not so amazing! The Camino has changed, as I think I mentioned, so I am trying to keep ahead of the masses. So I am constanly pushing a little further ahead or staying in a less popular location. Sometimes that means a gamble, but so far I am finding places. Like night before last. The guidebooks and arrows funnel everyone into Portomarin. The guidebook says the next albergue is 8k away and only has 28 beds. First I walk by faith - don't have a guidebook. It has been working for me so far. So I hit Portomarin before the municipal opened at 1:30 and all my friends were sitting in the heat on the ground waiting. After thinking a bit I told them all farewell and said I still had walk in me so I would gamble on the next town. It was 6k more and it was small but I got a bed. Sadly they were only about 8 beds left and they were all upper bunks and the ones that are pushed together so essentially sharing a bed. I found out later that night I was sharing a bed with a nice man that spoken broken English. He did give me permission to elbow him if he snored. Still awfully awkward for a gal from America that has never seen such a thing!

I left early the next morning cause I couldn't sleep. It wasn't cause of the guy in my bed actually - he didn't even come to bed until after 11 - it was the heat and the snoring. There really were only 28 beds and 20 of them contained snoring people! And when I laid down at 8pm there was a nice breeze but at midnight and later the breeze was gone and I was sweating like a pig. So I crawled out of bed at 4am and was on the road by 5:30. That was a new predicament. I have walked in the dark before, using my cell phone for light, but in the past the sky was clear and the road well marked and long stretches with no road changes. This was an over cast morning with a soft mist falling - fell most of the day - and I couldn't see the signs and a couple crossroads weren't even marked. I followed the horse turds for the most part and I found one yellow arrow on a broken sign in the ditch. Boy was I relieved when after about an hour I saw headlamps coming behind me. Yeah I had gone the right way! It was a nice walk once again. Because I was off the sequence the Camino was not crowded with newbies. I am traveling slower these days because I don't want to get to Santiago before Tuesday.

I had a lovely walk and came to this cool little rustic place - Casa Domingo tucked away - I checked it out, but it was a bit more than my usual $5 euros and no wi-fi, so I moved on. A kilometer or so up the road I was blessed with another new friend - Jess. She was walking the wrong way! She informed me the municipal was another 1 or 2 k up the road and had no cooking facilities and no store around. She was heading back to the one I had just. I needed food so I asked her if she wanted company and walked back with her.

So I am blessed with another great person inn my life and a new friendship. We had a great time at that albergue with new friends Mick from England (not Jagger but almost as old) and John from Ireland - a bullshitter and a great storyteller. Jess and I walked together today and John walked with us most of the day too. It was a good day - but more about last night and today another time. Think it is time for bed now. Another short day tomorrow before going on to Santiago on Tuesday.

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