Today I took a taxi, from Astorga to Rabanal del Camino. Was catching a cab in my initial plans? No, but with a blister the size of South Australia (I may be exaggerating just a little bit) it was really my only option, if I am to be able to continue on. Kate left at 8.30am to do the walk and, after strolling around Astorga for an hour or two, Juan, my new best friend, collected me from the hotel, for the half hour drive to Rabanal. I had been so disappointed that I had to forgo the walk, but meeting Juan changed all that. He was able to speak reasonable English and with my Spanglish, we managed to talk about our families, ( he has 3 children, two sons (Juan and Emilio) and one daughter, (Esther) and how he came to live in Astorga (he met his wife, Inez, when she was on holiday in his home town of Pamplona and he moved to Astorga shortly afterwards to marry her and raise their family). He has been living there for 30 years now.

I explained the reason I was not walking so, along the drive, he drove into each little village along the way and stopped for a few minutes each time, and explained that now I would not miss out. He didn’t have to do it, it was just such a thoughtful and lovely thing to do. And for no extra charge either, it was still the set price of €30. I was very happy to pay it.

So my experience of the Camino didn’t need to happen while walking, because if I had, I’d never had met such a delightful man. Juan was my diamond, today.

Rabanal de Camino is absolutely beautiful, a tiny, quintessential Spanish village and I’d happily stay here for a month. We are staying at the Hostal el Refugio – you’ll have to check it out online, because to try and describe it, well words fail me, but in a very good way! Our room overlooks the main, cobbled street and, as I’m tapping away, I can hear our Spanish neighbours all out, chatting and  laughing. I’ve thrown open the shuttered windows and we have a view of the church bell tower, directly opposite. Beautiful to look at, but we are hoping that they are not rung every hour through the night, which has been our experience so far, here in Spain.

We’ve explored Rabanal this afternoon and the town is awash with blossom. I’m almost certain it’s almond blossom, but will need to ask Christine, the owner of our hotel, to be sure. Whatever it is, it looks just beautiful, in amongst the little stone houses and churches. During our ramble, we met a woman who had just cut a huge bunch of lilac and she, very kindly, gave us both a branch of it. The scent is amazing. I’ve put them in a glass of water so, for tonight at least, we can both enjoy the perfume.

This evening we went to the tiny church directly across from our accommodation, to hear the Benedictine monks sing and offer vespers, in Latin. I understood almost not a word, but it didn’t make any difference. What an inordinately beautiful and memorable experience.

Tomorrow is a very big day, 28 klms, so that will be a huge test on all sorts of levels..mentally, physically and of course, blister capability. I’ll let you know how I go! Fairly certain that my bed will be calling me tomorrow night, almost as soon as I see it…

 

PS. We are having some technical ‘issues’ with WiFi here, so I’ll add some more photos when I can. I really can’t understand at all why the connection might be a bit shaky in this tiny, rural, stone built village, in the middle of northern Spain 🙂