Life's a Stitch

22k (13.6miles) it was a day for Camino angels, both on the receiving and giving end. The day started with banking frustration, three rejections at three different ATM's. Oh well, we said, we'll go on our way and call our bank when we take our break and hit the next ATM.

Next town: phone didn't work. A nice Guatemalan pilgrim lent us his phone. Angel #1. He also explained that only certain banks allow transactions with foreign cards. Then we discovered the nearest ATM forward was three days away.

We decided C would cab back to a bank in Astorga while I carried on. When C asked the bartender to call a cab, the bartender said no, it would cost 42e for the cab round trip and that we would be better off charging our MasterCard through him, paying him the 2.5% service fee he would be charged and he would give us the cash. Angel #2.

Now it was C's turn to be an angel. We were hiking when we noticed a group of Camino tourists distributed along the trail. They were from Germany and the bus driver let them off for a 5k sample walk on the Camino.

One woman, at least 80, was lagging behind. She was visually impaired, heavily dressed in the hot sun, sweating profusely and had no water. She was afraid to stop and rest because she had an hour to get to the bus. C walked with her while I went ahead to let the bus driver know if they didn't arrive on time or if C called for assistance. This story had a happy ending with the woman recovering with a cold beer in the garden with the rest of her group.

I forgot to say that in the morning two other pilgrims, people we had never met, offered to loan us money. As the Guatemalan man said, we are all pilgrim brothers and sisters, meant to support each other on the Way.

We saw lots of beautiful flowers in the sunshine.

This afternoon the wind kicked up and whispered eerily through a Hansel and Gretel pine forest. We then walked along a fence for 1k that held wooden crosses made by pilgrims.

We ended our day with a Pilgrim's mass and blessing with the monks at a 12th century Romanesque church. A simple church that we agreed was our favourite so far.

The German priest said the mass in English to accommodate the majority of those present, which was a nice and unexpected change.

Tomorrow is supposed to be cold, right in time for our 350 meter ascent to the highest point on the Camino 1500 meters (just under 5000 ft). Yikes!