Walked 20km today and I am feeling pretty good.
It was hot last Night and the flies kept bothering me. After a fitful nights sleep I woke up at 5 and was on the trail by 5:45.
It was an absolutely beautiful morning. I walked through hills of wheat fields and the rising sun lit them up like gold.
I got to the next town Los Arcos at 10:30, too early to stop for the day. I begged to use the bathroom at an albergue run by Austrians. I grabbed some chips and a soda at a store and relaxed in the plaza in the shade of the town church.
It was hot out today but not as bad as the last two days. I walked the 7.5km to the next town giddy with the knowledge that there was an albergue with a pool. Albergue La Pata de Oca
I showered the stink off my body. Too bad for my backpack, it still stinks. The pool was small but refreshing. It had two fountain jets coming out the wall into the pool. I sat on the edge of the pool with the jet pounding on my weary shoulders and back. When I got out of the pool I ended up sitting with two ladies from Ireland, Maria and Roisin (pronounced Rosheen). We chatted, they drank, we chatted some more. An Irish guy, Danny, who I had met the day before joined us. Then Diego from Brazil sat down, too. We talked for hours.
Diego and I got hungry because we were not filling calories with beer like the others, so we grabbed a bit at the bar restaurant. As it turns out Diego was a Disney cast member. He worked selling hotdogs at Casey's Corner at the Magic Kingdom for six months. (Jeff that's the place you Katie and I got hotdogs at 2am). So we chatted about Disney the whole time. He told me funny Cast Member stories. Well you know, Disney is like one of my favorite subjects...
The five of us, Maria, Danny, Roisin, Diego and I stayed up way too late talking and laughing. Maria sang two beautiful Irish ballads. Her voice and the emotions it carried were breathtakingly beautiful. We ended up talking a lot about the whole Ireland, England, Northern Ireland issues. The three of them each had really personal stories and accounts of the conflicts. It was extremely interesting and very moving.
It is wonderful meeting people on the camino. Everyone is not only friendly but open, and enjoyable to be around.
There are people from all over the world that I know better and have had deeper conversations with after knowing them for less than one day, than some (not all) people that I worked with all last year.
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