Astorga — Rabanal — El Acebo

The walk out of Astorga was beautiful, including past a stately church we had not gotten to the day before. Since Leon there has been a less well marked path for the Camino (a yellow arrow is the most common indicator of the direction), and Astorga was no exception, as various businesses have put yellow arrows to their business off the path. We had to ask directions a couple times, but then headed west out of town.

Meseta

Meseta

Rain clouds were threatening. Ted and I had started with our hardshell jackets and pack covers on, but Karen had been more optimistic the rain would hold off. A half hour into our walk Karen was suiting up as well. The first drops of rain hit us and then slowly intensified throughout the day, until by noon time we were walking in a rain storm complete with wind and cold. Eventually everything was soaked, including jackets, packs, and shoes. The wind was strong enough that the front of my pants would actually dry out from time to time with the rain dashing me from behind. By the time we reached Rabanal, our end goal for the day partway up a mountain, we had been hiking in complete sogginess for hours. I was past the point of caring whether I was avoiding mudpuddles or not.

We found a cozy posada and spent the next couple hours warming up in the shower, wiping up puddles off the floor (we each had a half liter of water in our pack covers, despite drainage holes in the bottom), and trying to dry out our shoes with crumbled newspaper.

path flooded with the rains

On today’s walk we ran into a man who was dragging a wheelbarrow behind him, which had his pack and the pack of a woman he had met on the Camino. They were traveling rather slowly (we caught up with them), and we had a chance to interact with them. The man spoke only Spanish but was singing various songs, some of which appeared to be religious chants. Ted and I joined in with our  harmonies (Karen videotaped it), much to the wheelbarreler’s amusement. The woman, who was walking in sandals and picking blackberries along the way, had started in Leon, had trouble with her hiking boots, and recruited the wheelbarreler to carry her pack to Santiago, possibly 40 days away.

wheelbarrowing the Camino

As in life, we’ve run into a number of people on the Camino, primarily women, who are adept at getting others to do things for them so they do not shoulder their own burden on the Camino. A Swedish woman we befriended and like a lot was angry at herself at one point for being talked into carrying two kilos of another woman’s weight that included a completely pointless can opener!

On the other hand, many, many women are hiking the Camino completely independently. I”m sure they all had anxieties before starting out, but now they are on the walk, making good decisions for themselves, handling challenges as they arise without resorting to helpless dependency on others, and functioning within their comfort zone so they are not getting hurt.

A number of people have either dropped out of the Camino at this point or are taking buses to cover different distances they want to avoid. It seems as though people who opt to take a bus at one point are then more and more likely to do that again, until that becomes the preferred way to cope with any adversity that arises. We walked for days on the Meseta, the flat middle section of the Camino, seeing almost nobody. With the rains of the last week, others are busing ahead.  The mountain range we crossed today discouraged still more. However, as is often said regarding this issue, everybody walks their own Camino, and there is no right or wrong way to do it.

We expected more rain today, but it never materialized, and instead it was foggy for most of the day. We left Rabanal, a town on the side of the mountain so delapidated it looks like an elaborate archeological dig, and headed up a beautiful, serene trail into the mountains. We hiked upward until lunchtime and then down until we got to El Acebo, where we are staying. Ted had some trouble with his knees on the way down, which we addressed with knee straps, ibuprofen, lots of water, and instructions on walking downward with small steps and bent knees. We have more downhill tomorrow, so hopefully he will recover over night.

dilapidated building

We reached a famous cross at the high point of the Camino, a place where by tradition pilgrims toss a stone they have carried from home which symbolizes some aspect of themselves they want to give up, e.g. one of the seven deadly sins. Ted had wanted to toss a rock that looked like the island of Molokai, where he is from, and he had spent many hours on the Camino looking for such a rock without success. A quarter mile from the cross we found a rock that fit the bill, and he tossed it. It had its own private meaning for him. He did report that it did not feel as though he were falling backwards into the arms of angels, I’m sorry to report.

The island of Molokai got tossed here.