There are 10 other people sleeping in the same room as you, all of them within 20 feet of you. How do you get up, pack your gear and sneak out the door without waking any of them up. Tanya and Kar-en from New Zealand choose to quietly stuff their gear and zip their zippers in the room. I can tell from experience, even if you don’t talk to your sister, you still are making a lot of noise in a once silent room. However, they didn’t seem to wake anyone in the 25 minutes they spent getting ready.
Sally and I decided the best way to sneak out was to pack everything the night before except the essentials for sleeping. When we got up at 5:45am (the sisters were gone by then) we quietly put our sleeping bags loosely in our packs, stripped the paper sheets off, grabbed our bags and exited the room. Once downstairs and out of earshot, we stuffed our sleeping bags, taped Sally’s feet and packed our packs. It appears we are not geniuses nor unique with this technique. Before we had everything ready to go, most of the room was downstairs with us doing the same thing. I went back up to check the room to make sure we had not left anything. Nope, and only one person was still in bed when I snuck in the room. Of course, most of these people have been living in hostels for two weeks, the time it takes to hike from the beginning to Fromista, so they have hostel life down pat.
It was still dark as we exited the building with Sandy and Regina. I used Guthook to guide us back to the “way”, although I had a difficult time for a minute determining which road was which, matching GPS map to real streets. A cafe owner who had stepped out pointed us in the right direction.
Sally and I stopped momentarily on a bus stop bench so she could eat her two hard boiled eggs for breakfast, then we were off again, trying to make some distance before the dark gave way to light.
We had left about an hour before the Castillo’s, hoping we could make half the distance to Carrion de las Condo, a place called Villamentero de Campos, by the time they did. The Castillo’s carry no packs and are a very fit family. They walk FAST.
We followed the route along the paved roads and soon passed through the village of Roblacion de Campos in the early morning light. As always, we were surrounded by and being passed by fellow walkers.
Once out of the village we came to a split in the route. One can either walk on the trail along side the highway, or the trail veers off the highway and follows a lesser road, paralleling the highway. I was for getting off the highway and was consulting my Guthook map. Sally found a large (3’x6’) metal sign on the ground that showed the highway route and the backroad route. She pointed out that if we took the backroad route we would likely miss the Castillo’s, as Villamentero de Campos was not on that route. I saw a crossroad from the backroad to the highway at Villamentero de Campos that could get us to our appointed meeting place. Sally countered that they would likely follow the highway and we might miss them. As you can imagine, we stood there for quite a few minutes deciding our fate. Sally’s route won, and off we went. I forgot that it didn’t really matter what route we took because with the communication app What’sApp I could send them my position and they theirs so we could easily find each other no matter where we ended up, not to mention they had a car and could drive to any location we might be at in literally less than a minute. But, it worked out well, because about 15 minutes later, as Sally and I sat on a bench eating a nectarine up ran Alba and Gonzola with Maxi.
Nerea drove up as we were leaving and I threw mine and Sally’s packs in her car so we didn’t have to carry them for this leg of the journey.
Maxi and I set a quick pace while Sally walked with Alba and Gonzalo behind and within half an hour we had reached Villamentero de Campos where Nerea and Raul were inside a cafe eating breakfast.
Sally got a Coke and we sat in the big grassy yard outside, watching the chickens and geese, played on the slack line and talked with the other walkers. It was time to get going as the Castillos had to get home that afternoon. Raul had a handball match and Alba a friend’s birthday party to get to.
Sally, Raul and Maxi loaded in the car. Nerea, Alba, Gonzalo and I headed out of town. Alba and her mom danced about the first kilometer. Not figuratively, literally danced up the path, singing. So cute. Gonzalo and I enjoyed their display of athleticism and extra energy. Nerea is a high school PE teacher and she is fit with a capital F. Later as I walked Alba said she would not have her mother as a teacher. She did not want to. What would she call her? Mom? Mrs. Castillo? Plus she had heard other students talking about her mom and she is a tough task master, although the kids that like to work and do sports really like her as a teacher. Those that don’t exercise thinks she pushes them too hard. I told Alba about my experience with having Andy and Jeff in class all four years. She would have non of it.
The three of them jabbered the whole way to Carrion del la Condo, every once in a while getting me in the conversation, but my Spanish is nearly nonexistent. Nerea has very limited English, while Alba and Gonzalo are conversational in English.
Maxi sent a text giving their location in town. We entered, but Maxi couldn’t sit still and was on the street walking to greet us. We stopped at the TI booth to get our Credentials stamped, then walked a bit into town, prolonging the inevitable parting that was moments away. Finally, the time came. We had a big, group family hug, all seven at once, then individual hugs and two kisses on the cheeks goodbye. We had hiked all four days and all but about 3 miles with this wonderful family.
With our goodbyes past, we moved to the plaza de Santa Maria where our albergue is located and sat on a park bench waiting for the noon opening. I was starving. We ate bread, meat and cheese and a nectarine. While doing this Sally noticed lots of people coming in and out of a door across the plaza. It was a bakery! Sally ventured forth and returned with two cream puffs and a delightfully large pastry. Wow!
The door to the albergue opened about 11:45am. We shouldered our packs and entered the door, along with about 10-15 other “pilgrims”, crammed into a small reception room. We picked this albergue because the description says singing nuns run it, it is clean and a very entertaining place to stay. We were disappointed to see three men in their late 20’s or early 30’s registering folks. That disappointment quickly evaporated when they began offering tea and cookies to the “pilgrims”. We were second in line. When we reached the table, they beckoned us to sit down, which we did, asked us where we were from, how our hike was going and showed genuine interest in us as persons, not just another body in a bunk. Once we paid our 5 euro each for our beds for the night and found out dinner tonight was free, just bring something to share and they would provide the main course, one of the guys took both our packs, bellboy style and led us to our bunk room and let us pick our bunk. Amazing!
When we were in the reception room Tanya and her sister Karen came in, Tanya limping horribly. We questioned her and found, although we had seen how monterously large her blisters were (astoundingly large and on every corner of her feet), she had developed a stabbing pain in the meat of her foot, very reminiscent of the pain Sally experience on the PCT in 2014. They took a bunk just 15 feet from ours and I went over to see if I could help. Through tears of pain and disappointment, Tanya explained the origin and location of the pain and her fear that she would not be able to finish the walk, a dream she had been working towards for years, and a large outlay of money to make it happen. To me, ice was the answer, so Sally and I walked to the nearest grocery store, a little shop about 2-3 minutes away and bought a bag of ice. The guys at the albergue got a bucket for us. We put Tanya’s foot in a ziplock bag so her blister patches would not get wet and she began a 20 minute on, 20 minute off icing regimen that lasted the rest of the day. Sally and I returned to the grocery store for a few items, including a watermelon to donate to tonight’s dinner, the toured this medium sized town on foot, finding the river, the large city park and a monstrously large swimming pool. Sally was considering swimming, but wanted to feel the water’s warmth. There was only one person swimming in the pool, doing laps. The rest was empty. To get to the pool you have to walk under 4 shower heads. No biggie. But, as she did, the sensors we did not know about detected her movement and she was showered in water, soaking her clothing and her hair before she could react and jump back. You know Sally. She laughed and laughed at her plight. She sprinted through the shower, reached the pool and tested the water, finding it comfortable. Now the lifeguards of the pool started telling her she could not be in that area with her clothes on, only bathing suits. We are talking about a pool about 50 yards long and 40 yards wide. No one is there, except our lap swimmer, yet these guys are worried about dripping wet Sally as if she were trying to sneak in or was about to jump in the pool with her clothes on. She joked with them and left the pool area as they saw they were overreacting, still in crowd control mode from a busy summer season. The showers do not come on as you leave the pool, only as you enter, so Sally did not get another dousing.
We finished our walk through the town and returned to the albergue. I moved to the outside courtyard of the albergue to do some writing on the tables there. Sally headed back out to the park to enjoy the sun and wind that had become quite fierce. Just a few minutes later the “pilgrims” started to gather in the courtyard for a singing activity, led by the young men running the place. I exited to the park looking for Sally. Wren, a woman from the Philippines pointed to the open door of the church. I entered and traversed the transcript and nave, but did not find her. Outside once again, I found Sally sipping a soda at an outside pub table nearby.
Upon returning to the albergue we found Tanya and Karen had found an emergency medical facility just a 3 minute walk away and were about to head that way. We decided to help, as Tanya could barely walk at this point. Once we staggered to the facility we found the nurse knew no English and my feeble Spanish couldn’t help. I ran back to the albergue and found one of the young men that was bilingual and he agreed to come with me to interpret.
The doctor diagnosed only inflammation and no broken or stress fractured bones. 4 days of rest were prescribed, with a return visit to see him in the morning. Tanya was somewhat relieved, but still worried about her ability to complete the walk. You see, there is another aspect to this story. Tanya has a genetic condition that is causing her to slowly go blind, and if she doesn’t finish this year, she won’t be able to see well enough to come again. Her sister helps her along the way by helping to point out curbs and other impediments Tanya might not see. Karen has decided to keep walking. Tanya will stay at the albergue another night to let her foot heal, then take a bus up the route to stay near her sister, hoping in 4 days the foot will heal enough for her to keep walking, from Leon, Spain. I looked and found 3 podiatrist offices in this large city. A anti-inflammatory shot might be necessary.
Once we had Tanya back, we got her foot in ice water again and I helped with making dinner, slicing watermelon and putting items on the long table.
The community dinner was very fun. Tanya sat on my right, Sally on my left, Sandy and Regina across the table with a man from Indiana named Brian. We had a great time. The woman next to Regina was the spitting image of Pat Caldwell’s sister Betsy. We took a picture of her and texted it to Pat for confirmation.
Dinner done ( it had started at 8:30pm-typical of Spanish custom of late meals) we packed for our quiet early morning get away and slipped into bed, setting the alarm for 5:15.
It is amazing how in just a few hours or days you can make such strong connections to people you previously have not known. There is nothing like common purpose and hardship to unite strangers. We promised the Castillos we would come visit them at their home someday, and we will. Tanya and I exchanged phone numbers so we can help if there is anyway we can. What will tomorrow bring?
Trains markers along the route. Lots of them.
Nerea, Alba and Gonzalo nearing our destination for the day, Carrion de la Condo
Castillos with Sandy and Regina at the halfway point for the day.
Full of energy after 12 miles, Nerea, Alba and Gonzalo show their enthusiasm for walking and the Camino de Santiago.
Last picture with our adopted family.
Community Dinner at Saint Maria albergue.
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