A week in review

After Logroño we headed to Ventosa.  It was one of the most beautiful hostels so far.  It was all new and clean and they made it feel like a real home with art and a landscaped courtyard to hang our wash and socialize.  It was absolutely perfect, and all of our new traveling companions were able to stay.  We have been meeting so many wonderful people, and you can blame them for our lack of posts; ) It has been way more fun to socialize than to try to find an internet cafe.  We apologize for the infrequency of the posts.  Ventosa had a lovely restaurant and we enjoyed our pilgrim´s menu with new friends.  Brian and I snuck away from the group for a while to do some yoga in the grass in front of the town church.  It was such a peaceful place, especially after the busyness of the feast days in a big city.

After so many great days, we were bound to have a rough one sometime... We had just been saying that we haven´t had any trouble getting into hostels and then came a series of dissappointments.  Point of reference we are on September 23rd of our journey.  We made good time to Azofra and decided to press on to the little city of Cirueña.  It was a hot long walk, but we finally made it to the city.  The first hostel we tried had been closed for two years (we are going to have to write to our guide book about that) and the second, and only other one in town, was full.  So at 3:15 we filled up our water bottles and pressed on to Santa Domingo Calzada (for a record total of 32 kilometers in one day!).  We were pretty silly by the time we arrived.  We could barely believe our eyes when we saw that the albergue was full.  Oh no! There was one more in town just a few meters away, our last hope.  It was wonderful!  It had only been open for two years and everything was in great condition.  I was so tired that I just wanted to go to dinner (and I had really been wanting some fish after all of the pork they serve here), but Brian wanted to stay in and cook.  As we walked past the kitchen to see what we would need to buy, two women who we recognized from our hostel in Ventosa invited us to share their home-cooked fish dinner.  It was a miracle.  We only had to provide the wine and dessert.  It´s moments like those, that happen all the time, that make us feel we are being taken care of on this journey.

So now all our plans were thrown out since we were ahead of schedule and it would be too short of a day to stay in Grañon, which we had been excited about.  We walked on to a small city that was had a lot of Paulo Coelho writings, and I was really looking forward to talking with the Brazilian owners.  After waiting over an hour for it to open, the woman came out and told us that if we didn´t have a reservation we should keep walking.  I was really disappointed, especially when I found out later that it wasn´t even true.  We ended up staying in Villa Mayor del Rio, where we reconnected with some friends and made some new ones.  We met a young man who was making a video about the Camino, and hopefully we will be able to add his link once it´s completed.  He showed us what he´s done so far, and it artfully captures the highlights and feeling of the Camino (minus blisters, snorers, bed bugs, full hostels, tired feet...).  We can´t wait for him to finish it though, so we can share our experience more fully with all of you.

This is getting too long, so we´ll break it up a bit.  The next climb...