Day 21 - Alicante with best friend from youth

This morning was great because we got to be incorporated into a "regular day at the Plats". We watched several games that Johnny's team played (local tournament), and then a friendly scrimmage that Caleb's team played. Joe had video camera in hand and coaching from the side more than the coach! :-)

In between that, Sarah and Hanna were shuttled to some sort of dog training seminar/lesson in Campello.

The afternoon mellowed out until around 6:30 pm when my very best friend from middle school and early teen years, Oswaldo (chichi as we called him) came by with his sister Maruja and her husband Vicente. We ended up going out to dinner with their kids and then back to Maruja's house for dessert. There is deep joy in knowing someone who knew you "back then"...to help remember the stories and make sense of the past. David was able to REALLY practice his Spanish tonight...and he did very well hanging out with my friends young adult children. It was a night remember! Thank you, Chichi, Maruja, Vicente and your great kids.

Day 20 Alicante day 2 / Guadalest

Isabel and I were in charge of breakfast this morning so we made French omelette and pan con tomate, on old family favorite.

Later in the morning Joe, Caleb, Dave and I drove to Alicante. Our first stop was to look for a place to rent scooters for Dave and I to go on some excursions. The laws have changed since I was last here and they required an international license, so we weren't able to do that. We then did a few other errands and stopped by my Spanish grandfathers old place downtown which was now just a small plot of land amongst other buildings. I have some pictures below showing the area. It is just a few blocks away from the port, making it an excellent location.

After a nice lunch on the explanade, we dropped Joe and Caleb off at Rio Vida and headed towards Guadalest, a tiny mountain pueblo an hour north that we always enjoy visiting. We did a little shopping, took some pictures, and had one of the best Sangria's of my life. 

We headed back around 7pm and watched Caleb's last hour of a soccer scrimmage. He did great playing left fullback. We were amazed at the skill level of the 15-year-old Spanish teams. 

When we got home, Sarah had prepared an amazing Paella for about 20 people. This was Joe's monthly men's group meeting night, so we got to meet them and enjoy a very lively discussion about how God intersects our lives.

Day 19 Alicante!!

After an early alarm clock, we caught the bus to the Santiagor de Compostela airport and took a Ryanair flight directly to Alicante, the city where I was raised through my teenage years, to visit my brother Joe and his family. 

After an uneventful flight we met Joe and his son Johnny at the airport. It was good to see them.

Dave and I are both excited to kick back and take a few days off and enjoy Joe and Cindy and their awesome kiddos.

Day 18 El Camino WE MADE IT!

With sore feet and searing pain in my shins, we made it to the cathedral of Santiago...I have never been so happy to plop down knowing we were finished!

Today's walk of almost 20km was one of the shortest but toughest because it was mostly paved roads and the last 4km were through city streets..tough after being in such rural areas all week. Most people walking were focused on finishing so we only really spent time with a couple of older ladies from Denmark that we had met earlier in the week.

At 7:30 we attended mass at the main cathedral, then met our friends from Casa Domingo for dinner and birthday celebration for Jose. We spent several hours singing songs and talking about El Camino. We definitely made some new friends!!

As we wrap up this leg of the trip, we spent some time discussing lessons we learned from the road.

- Once you start down the path, stay the course.

- If you leave something important behind, you go back and get it. Mistakes happen...Deal with them.

- Our bodies are tougher than we think. We can tolerate more pain than we think.

- People are interesting. Listen. Reach out. Discover.

- Listening to other opinions is good, but you don't have to take their advice.

- Everything we do has a risk associated with it. Consider the risk.

PS: yes, there is a picture of David putting a flower in a horse terd...

Day 17 El Camino - Getting closer

Walking El Camino has been a great experience. There is the physical exertion required, the interesting people you meet, the beautiful Spanish countryside and the rural communities that take you back time to a simpler way of living. Today was a summary of all those things!

Breaking the 40km mark brought in a second wind of energy, but it was still slow going getting in 20km today at my much slower pace since the shin splints...nevertheless, after several long pit stops, we made it to Arco Do Pino, less than 20km from our final destination, El Catedral de Santiago de Compostela.

As we were entering the town, a car pulled over and a guy handed us a brochure for a "casa rural"...a private residence that rented rooms. Since we had stayed at a "Pension" the night before, we decided this would be good, especially after staying in Gonzalos grandfather's mill a few nights before, and enjoyed the homey atmosphere. We are here now and not at all disappointed. The owners grandmother left them this house which they have fixed up very nicely. We got a huge room with 3 beds and a great view to the countryside.

As far as the walk today, it started with just Dave and I strolling along some rural paths and him practicing his guitar. Within an hour we started seeing more people, a number whom we already new. In terms of new people, we walked with an older couple, Frederick and his wife from Germany for a bit while he took many photos and complained about how Charles Degaulle took all the credit for saving France from the Germans when it was the Americans who saved them.

A little bit later on we stopped for a light lunch and met a group of middle age women of Asian descent but from Canada. Several of them were lawyers and one of them had their daughter who had also just graduated college like Dave.

The clouds started rolling in and we started getting a light drizzle and the trail was more sparse than normal. We did come across two young ladies who were from Germany and had been hiking the northern route of the trail, which had just intersected with our French way. They said they seldomly saw anyone on the trail for many many hours and we were the first ones they spoke with after 10 days of being on the trail. Anna and Julia were best friends who had just graduated college although they were in their mid-and late 20s. We discussed politics , sports and general life events. After walking together for about an hour we decided to have some coffee and stopped at a small local bar. When I asked David to do all the ordering in Spanish I suggested that he play a song for a discount. The bartender actually took us up on it and David played for the entire bar. People broke out their camera phones and videotaped it. He sang a couple of songs after enthusiastic encouragement from the small crowd. It was a blast and we got a huge free croissant!

Back to the casa rural, we asked for a recommendation for dinner and they sent us to a very local home cooking style place. We were shocked and so excited to see our good friend José sitting at a table near the entrance. We hugged and discussed plans to attend his birthday party tomorrow. He and us were so excited to see each other again.

Almost 11:30 now...better get to sleep for our big last push! Thanks for reading along!

Day 16 El Camino - Tough day

Well, my shin splints got worse today and the first blister has appeared. Walking El Camino today was the most difficult.

On the bright side, we ran into a number of friends we have already met along the way and got to catch up with them and enjoy their company to ease the pain. At one point, David pulled out his guitar and played for several hours attracting a few other pilgrims to walk along with us.

As noon was approaching, a lady we had met earlier named Nancy caught up to us. Turns out she is an American who has her own company to help people set up El Camino experiences. She had a lot of knowledge about the pilgrimage and history of it, which was interesting to listen to and helped us pass the time through the pain. We invited her to join us for lunch and she suggested a typical Gallego restaurant that served the specialty of the region, octopus. Dave and I ordered a large octopus and I must say it was delicious.

In the afternoon the clouds started rolling in and the trail became more sparse of people. I was holding up Dave with my walking much slower, but he entertained himself beat boxing (I think that's what that was). Just when I thought we wouldn't be seeing anyone else, a couple we had met a day or so ago caught up to us. Bill and Claudia are from Santa Barbara. He works as an executive director for a nonprofit and social services, and she works for the county government. They are sweet people a bit older than me who have very interesting lives and shared stories freely. Again, helped me forget about the pain and even helped me pick up the pace a bit.

We parted ways around 6PM as they had arrangements to stay in the town where we had arrived. We wanted to go another 6 km so we pressed on. We arrived to Arzua around 7 PM and quickly found a pension that had a bathtub where I could soak my aching shins!

Tomorrow could be really tough. We have two more days to cover 40km, which is less than we have covered per day, so I am hopeful we will be fine, arriving to Santiago de Compostela Wednesday afternoon.

Day 15 El Camino - Peregrinos at Casa Domingo

After a good night of sleep at the simple but nice ´´pension de arenas¨, we got up early to try and see how far we could go. We had trekked 14 miles the day before, we were going to see if we could do more today.

After a quick cappuccino, we got on the road around 9am. We both felt surprisingly good and started trekking at a pace of over 3 miles per hour.  We were passing people quite a bit and wondering when we would get tired...but we weren´t!  We ran into a number of people we had met the day before and stopped and snacked with some of them around noon.

We were making a lot of progress but getting hungry, so stopped and had a a bowl of hot garbanzo soup, which was really good. Lots of spinach, garbanzos, potatoes and other vegetables. The prices are really good as these are local people making home cooked meals for the peregrinos.

Once we hit the road again, my right shin starting to hurt....oh no...shin splits. I think I was pushing myself too much in the morning.  As the trail became a little hilly, I felt it getting worse. David´s toe was also starting to hurt. Evidently, his right foot is slightly longer than his left foot, and the toes on his right foot hit the very end of the shoe.  The weather was chilly but so far, it has only rained once, and we happened to be having a snack in an albergue when it hit...so, David put on his chocos (thanks Hope!) and he was much happier. I took some advil and we slowed down. A couple of Argentinians were just ahead going at a slower pace, so after a brief getting to know them, David broke out the guitar and strapped it on and we continued down the Camino playing old Beatles songs.

As the afternoon was carrying on, we thought we would learn our lesson from yesterday (waiting to get to a pueblo before looking for a place to stay) and setting a target of where we would want to be. I looked at my little PDF guide and noticed a tiny village 6 km away with only 1 albuergue called Casa Domingo...so we thought we could make it by 6pm and I called them and made a reservation. What happened next was nothing less than one of the most special times we have had with other people on this trip.

According to my GPS, we should have arrived to Casa Domingo, but we were still in the middle of winding paths in the countryside, surrounded by cows and wheat fields. We got a little hope when we crested a small hill, then went down around a corner and noticed a very old, stone built house with a banner on it. As we got closer, sure enough, it said ´´Casa Domingo´´. Yes!! We were ready to stop after almost a 19 mile day!

As we entered, we started noticing the owners had taken great care in preserving the original blocks, but decorated the outside walls with old tools from the fields (hoes, pitchforks, etc.). We entered the front door to find what might have been an old barn area with 25 foot ceilings, all uneven stones, several open fireplaces lit and a large U shaped table that could sit maybe 30 people. We felt we had entered someones home.

A very warm smile emerged on the face of Gonzalo, the owner, as he came in the room and welcomed us. We were the only ones there and he asked if I had called. After confirming, he said our room was in another building he would drive us there...which I thought was odd, but oh well.

He explained that they had built the private rooms into an old Mill House where he used to work as a child. We found out later it was built in 1904 by his grandfather. It would take me several paragraphs to describe how cool this place was, but in a nutshell, they had preserved all of the Mill workings including having a glass floor so we could see the River running below the house. Later that evening Gonzalo's father came and showed us and some of our new friends exactly how the mill works. Yes, I said works. They actually have it still functioning. It was amazing to see and hear the stories of how people used to bring him there wheat, corn and oats and he would grind them for them and  give them back in the bag. Check out the picture below to see him explaining to us how it all works.

For people who appreciate antiques, the old mill was full of original furniture that had been restored. The original beams held the roof together. They have fixed this place up in an amazing way. Our rooms were immaculate and very comfortable yet still retained a lot of character and charm from the old Mill days. We made a movie to show you later.

Not only was the Millhouse cool but that evening some other guests from the main Casa Domingo came down to the living room area where there were couches and a fireplace, and David and I were there already, David playing guitar. They immediately invited us to have a drink with them and encouraged David to share some songs. After getting to know one another a bit, David did sing some of his songs and it turned into a very special evening. One of the older gentleman in particular we bonded with, Jose. He is a semi retired entrepreneur from Madrid who was simply fascinating, yet so intrigued by our father /son relationship...and he and David really hit it off well (David's Spanish is coming along nicely). I can't even begin to go into all the details, but we talked for hours and tears were shed and warm long hugs were given at the end of the evening. I made a video 

of him giving David some advice and a blessing of sort. Fortunately we will be seeing him again soon. He invited us to a special birthday party he is celebrating in Santiago de Compostela this coming Wednesday. We definitely plan to attend. 

The day ended magically. We fell asleep in our very comfortable beds in a 100+ year-old millhouse in the countryside of Spain, with new friends and great memories from The Camino.