coming home

hi you guys,
well, barb and i had an awakening at the nurse´s office today. we realized that the nurse was trying to help barb´s foot heal, not get us ready to walk some more. i asked if we would be able to go to santiago soon and she asked 'how?' i said walking and she looked exasperated. she said if barb had any pain we had to quit.
we came back to the hostel, barb went for a walk to think, and came back saying no, she couldn´t do it. while she was gone, i came to the same thought. there is too much risk, it´s too isolated an area and there are still 400+ kms to go. too far.
so, as sad as i am, i know it´s the right decision. walking in pain, i think, keeps a person from being totally here. and to me, the only point of the camino is to be here.
we have had a great time, we laugh all the time, we´ve made friends, we did everything we wanted except arrive in santiago. yesterday, a store clerk gave barb a scallop shell, we thought it was a sign that we would go on to santiago. now i think, maybe it´s a sign we will be back.
the happy part is coming home to my girls and those beautiful little boys. we have no idea of when and how we are coming, but we will be there soon.
happy mother´s day beautiful daughters. i´ll be home for my birthday! and happy mother´s day to all of you other mothers reading this blog.
thank you for spending this time with us.
love,
mom, nonna, mary

good news

hi
we went to the clinic and the nurse redressed barb´s feet. things look so much better to me. the nurse said come back tomorrow same time. so i think we will continue to visit the clinic everyday until barb is healed, who knows how much longer. but we have time and we love everything about this city, including it´s internet cafe.
that´s all for now.
love,
mary

good morning my friends,
i forgot to read my last blog to know where we left off. but i think we were in caceres, saying goodbye to michael and paul and waiting for our bus to salamanca. we decided that with barb´s sore toes, we couldn´t walk long distances and so we would jump a bus to cut out a lot of km´s. that way we could walk easily to santiago. we arrived in salamanca, found a lovely hotel with a jacuzi,free laundry, and a very helpful man behind the desk.all for 40 euros. we walked around the town. it is really too big for a pilgrim, if you can call us that, and we wanted to start walking in the morning. so we didn´t see much of the town.
that night i talked with a man in the hotel who was living in the hotel for a year so he could study spanish. he was from canada and wanted to talk. he told me that he had wanted to walk the camino but had a bad accident while living in south america. he showed me his scars- on top of his head, his arm, his leg. he said his arm hurt so much he wanted the doctor to cut ift off. he asked if we were pilgris, why were we in a hotel. i said my sisters foot hurt. he said -why didn´t she train? i said well she did, but sometimes, things happen that are out of our control. then he said, did you know the americans killed osama bin laden and buried him in the north sea. the navy killed him. the whole conversation seemed from another reality. he was living in a hotel for a year? what, you have to show me your scars? what? osama bin laden was killed by the navy and buried in the north sea? i went back to our room. barb was in bed.the room was dark. i said osama bin laden was killed and buried in the north sea. we just laughed. ( not as much as we did the next day when we saw the cbs animation of his body falling into sea, during a break in a soccer match on tv in a bar) it was all too weird.
the next day we walked to the cathedral, got our stamp, and out of salamanca. (the photo is of the salamanca cathedral. it was huge and beautiful. how did they build these buildings?)
we walked 15km across the meseta. the meseta is awesome to me. you can see forever, but there is nothing to see but green grasses and blue sky. the temperature was 65 or so and there was a light breeze. what a grand day for walking.
we arrived in a dusty, low town. the albergue was full ( 15 places) so we were forced to the hotel bar at the end of twon. a pouty man showed us the room. it was 3\4 the size of a cigar box. it was orange. he said it was 40 euros, the same as the nice room in salamanca. i tried to say -you have to be kidding? or you can´t be serious? but i didn´t know the spanish words for serious or kidding, so i said ok.
barb took a shower and a seiesta, i left and sat on the plaza in the sun. later, barb came up, said she had stopped at an emergency medical clinic, and the doctors their told her she had to stop walking. i was shocked, but not shocked.
we talked about our options. decided to take another bus, here, to zamora, and get a second opinion. we are doing that this afternoon. we will tell you the answer later.
but, here we are in one of the most beautiful, friendly, easy towns i have ever been in. we walked into the plaza yesterday, and stood as we always do, with a map and a quizical look on our faces. a very small lady, 4 foot 8 or so, came up and started talking. she had white hair and looked like one of my deceased aunts. she asked, were we french, no we said. we couldn´t hear her well because there was a very loud demonstration on the plaza. the bomberos want more equipment and clothes and they were banging drums, blowing whistles and blowing a siren to get attention. anyway, finially the lady said, i have a hostel. we followed her to the hostel la reina, to a tastefully decorated quiet room. and there we are. barb says we should just stay here a month and write a bogus blog, but no we can´t. we will go to the clinic, and see if we can walk. if not, we will come home early.
i,ll let you know.
love,
mary mom nonna.

santiago, storks, friends, and handsome men

hello again,
well these pretty much cap what we did today, plus i added a photo from yesterday of paul and michael sitting on a roman bridge.
today is a holiday, both the day of caceres´patron saint, san jorge, and then may day. there was a long mass last night, the cathedral was decorated with countless roses, all red, orange and pink. the church glowed with red, and candlelight. there were so many people you could see very little, we didn´t stay. we walked around the old walled town, stopping here and there for wine and tapas. today the sun shined and we walked some more. the small statue of santiago is from the door of the church of the same name. it is the image i love -the gentle santiago, not the moor slayer. (there are always two variations of st. james, one of the pilgrim and the other of the man who supposedly led the christians to battle against the moors. ) i did think it looks a little like st. james is carrying an umbrella, which is appropriate for this way. maybe this is a third variation.
i can´t take enough photos of the storks, flying, standing in their nests, feeding there babies, whatever they want to do. they are so graceful. there are nests everywhere. never have i seen so many.
the young men in the photo were not only very handsome, but they had amazing voices. we heard their music from far away and were drawn to them. they are flamenco singers. such strong voices and sound. i have to buy a cd some day.
we walked and walked all day, from coffee con leche to beer and chips. we saw cisterns, and manor homes, and churches, and confirmation ceremonies, people walking and sitting in sidewalk cafes, and children playing in the plazas. i have a million photos of children, i think i am very lonesome for oscar, jude and arthur.
barb and i have decided to take a bus tomorrow to salamanca and start walking again from there. we will cut 100km from our journey which should give us plenty of time to get to santiago in a month, which is how long we have. i have walked about 300km so far, i think. mas or meno. barbs toes look really good- pink and healthy. we want to keep it that way.
so, although we have been tourists today, tomorrow we are pilgrims again. i look forward to it.
with love,
nonna, mom, mary

photos from yesterday

we are in caceres today, the arches are from plaza mayor. out pension is just above this restaurant. the granite is a photo of the roman militario, with an opening for mail. isn´t that crazy? they say it is dated from 28ad.
i am going to post another photo now.
mary

Caceres

hi everyone
oh my god this is so much fun. i have walked for two days with the german man and his son. barb took a bus to this town on thursday morning.we met on the plaza espana at 2 or so today.
she looks great and her toe is healing nicely. barb and i will stay here until she is ready to go. she wants to go now, but knows she must wait a bit.
i know she has had a good time finding a boot store and a farmacia etc. we are a little bad. we think the lisping ci is hysterical. if we say famacia, we laugh and laugh like 10 year olds.
anyway, back to my walk. lets see. since we last talked we went to a crabby town, with a very nice albergue. when i say the town was crabby i am serious. erika and alison, it was like the brute family, only a brute town. everyone scowled and frowned and wouldn´t help. at the end, there was actually an altercation between a pilgrim and a restaurant owner, who then came to the albergue with the police. ( it was all about a piece of glass that was found in our food.) the restaurant owner said we put the glass in to get a free meal. it was like being in college, the drama and all.the police were very serious.
but before dinner, the man who volunteered at the albergue was very friendly. i could talk with him in spanish, because i can ask questions. later he came to me and said the television people where there and wanted to talk to pilgrims, and my spanish was very good! he asked if i would come down to the common room. i said sure, because i thought all of the pilgrims would be there. but no. they all said no, they didn´t want to be on tv. the interviewer said she would ask me simple questions, and said a few examples, where are you from , where are you going, what do you like about the pilgrimage etc. i thought, well fine. put on some lipstick and waited. the time came, the camera was rolling and she started talking a mile a minute and not the questions we practiced. i just kept saying, si and como? and all the coward pilgrims, including my sister, stood back and tried not to laugh. luckily it was live tv and i didn´t see it. but i have been teased a lot since then.
michael and paul are the father and son we have been walking with. barb calls paul grasshopper because he runs and jumps and dances while he listens to his music along the way. it is crazy how much energy he has- he is 17. both michael and paul speak english very well and are great to walk and talk and have dinner with. we laugh all the time. they will leave for home on monday and barb and i will be on our own again, until the new family forms. there are french people who snore that we are trying to stay away from. watch, they will be with us all the way.
we don´t know what our schedule will be. we are using up days walking shorter distances than the plan shows, so we have to take a bus for some kms. we want to walk under 20kms for a few days, and it´s difficult because some towns are more that 38kms apart. but what makes me happy is that we are relaxed about the whole thing. we really are living right here right now. ( before i came here, i went to dinner with mary marsden and we had a long wonderful talk about right here right now. it is the mantra for barb and i. thanks mary.)
the walk continues to be beautiful and interesting.
i have seen so many roman ruins. i love them. merida is a gorgeous city with an amazing roman theater, roman circus, temple to diana etc. there is also a great museum. but while we walk we also see the roman past, today alone i saw two beautiful small bridges with worn stones where carts and feet have walked. and also milestones, one with a cut out place for mail. all of these things have been there since 28 ad. a man also opened up a hermitage for us to see. there were dolmens someplace, i thought i saw them, but they were only big cows. so no dolmens today.
it has been raining more again. everyday but three. more mud and jumping rivers and walking on stepping stones, but so much fun.
i forgot my camera cord, so i don´t have photos. i,ll come back tomorrow and download some.
bye, i love you.
mary, mom, nonna

st. christopher and baby moses

hi everyone
barb and i have finished another day- this is day 8. so far we have walked through three agricultural areas, first pigs, then wheat or other grains and now grapes and olives. the sky was blue and the air clear today. we walked 22 km, tomorrow 28, our longest.
yesterday we had to cross two creeks that were high. did i tell you that a day before a man stood in the water for a long time helping people cross over stepping stones that were mostly under water. the water was moving very fast and it was hard to balance. so yesterday, there was another young man to help barb and i. i thought of st. christoper and the photo you always see with a man carrying baby jesus on his shoulder across a swollen river. well, in this case we had to take off our boots and socks and slide done a very slippery bank- maybe a foot or so, and then walk carefully across a cement thing that was laying across the water. we both made it safely to the other side. at the second creek there was no st. christoper. just barb and i. we were tired and the water was cloudy, like tea with milk.we tired to think of ways aross. let me give you the options:
a- take off your boots and walk in the water to the other side- about 6 ft away.
b- don´t take off your boots and try to stay on the rocks which were maybe 4 inches under water or
c- look upstream about 30 feet for a way across that was more narrow, but you have to walk through knee high grass, and feel the ground with your hiking pole. at a certain point you fall off the bank and go under water for a minute in your hiking boots, rain gear and with a back pack on your back.but you do surface.

if you guessed that 'a' was the right answer, you were correct. barb chose b, but only because she had a clue- she heard a big splash. i unfortunately choose 'c'. i was certain there had to be a better way across.
after i fell in, i found my footing and stood up. i secured my glasses and my cute headband. i stood in the water for a minute thinking what an interesting view. one i had never seen. i was in chest high water, the bank was above me and all i could see was that grass. that´s when i thought of baby moses, living for three years like that- in reeds. barb was calling for me and i started laughing because it was such a crazy thing to do and i wasn´t dead.
i pulled myself up using the grass and found good ground, on the other side of the creek. i was really lucky because the air was warm and there was a breeze. i dried off in about 15 minutes. nothing in my backpack got wet because i pack everything in plastic. even my phone and camera were ok.
at the albergue last night we had a washing machine, dryer and a very hot shower, so the dirty creek water was gone. we went out to dinner , eating fine tapas again and drinking a very nice wine. but all through the night last night, i could see the bank and grass and laughed again.
our camino family- it seems we have seen the last of michael and his son paul,and the men with the burros. we really enjoyed their company and it´s always hard to say goodbye. everyone we talk with is either german or french and they all have walked the camino many times. this way, the via de la plata is gorgeous and less crowded.
i think barb and i have found our groove. she has two blisters, not too bad, and i have none, knock on wood. we are walking at the same pace and having fun.
i loved talking with erika and jude on easter and alison you the day before. i hope you all had a good easter. we did.
goodbye from villafanca de los barros.
love,
mom, nonna, mary

hello again
another good day. we walked in the rain, yes, but it was a steady rain, not cats and dogs. and there was no wind so we were warmer. the countryside was beautiful. huge vistas with fields, some green some being planted and some golden. there was fog and sunshine and cows. we could see the path for miles and miles. tiny pilgrims far ahead. there was a groupd from a bus, 31 of them, who walked with umbellas, not backpacks. there was a river to cross, one man took off his boots and steadied people as they walked across the stepping stones. because of all the rain, the river was running very fast. i asked him if he was cold and he said no. i think he helped 15 or 20 people across. i told the group i was waiting for my sister, so they waited also and one man took barbs backpack across and another helped her by saying aqui aqui to say where to walk. all so lovely. j
next we go for wine and dinner. what a fabulous experience. oh one thought i had today. one other reason i love the camino is because it is a chance to be child like. splashing in puddles, stepping on stones, looking at flowers. just spending time doing nothing serious. ahhh.
i´ll be back another day.
love,
mary

walking in the rain

oh boy,
here we go again. this keyboard has it´s own spirit. i would like big type, but no. it´s tiny. i hope you can read it.
barb and i have been walking in the rain for 4 days. either cats and dogs or a light irish mist. we see giant fincas with sheep or goats or pigs, all free range. they live with beautiful cork trees, and oaks. there are green hills, ending in grey foggy horizons. it is peaceful and beautiful. quiet, no people, no traffic. yes, we are so wet and often cold. soaked feet , wet socks, snacks standing under a tree. but we laugh and shake our heads.
we checked the weather all the time before we left and expected 80s with sun. we were worried about being too hot. i told barb, no, no wool or down.now, we would kill for a wool sweater. and dry boots.
we have many new friends- michael and his son paul from southern germany, 3 men walking with two real donkeys from france, iris and her boyfriend raphael, and francesca and ricardo from italy. most are here for easter break so we will have a new family next week perhaps.
i want to tell you about last night. barb and i arrived in real de las jara yesterday afternoon so cold and wet. the albergue was way at the edge of town and we couldn´t find the person with the key. we went to a bar and had coffee. we asked about a pension and were led to a perfect, warm dry home close to the church. at 6 the bells started ringing and we went to the service. the church was a moorish design outside and pure white inside, except for a brilliant gold alterpiece. there were many people, we squeezed into a pew. mass began, signing from a young peoples choir of 10 or 12. two who sang solos, had voices so pure and steady. the priest was quiet and seemed very humble. he did a service of washing the feet of the servers. maybe this is comon for holy thursday, but it touched me so. during communion the lovely voices sang to guitar music, like sagovia. after we went outside and there were our friends. they had come for the processiontypical of holy week. it consists fo 20 men carrying a float out of the church and around the area. the float is huge with a statue of jesus carrying a cross. people cheered the efforts to carry the float. there was a band playing typical holy week music, the trumpet is unbelievable. i have a movie ( later when i get home) and will buy a cd of the music. i love it.
after our little family went to dinner. wine, laughter, french,german and english wordsmixing up around our table. then to bed.
in the morning more walking in rain, stepped through little streams, around big ones, and here we are.
tomorrow is 29 km our longest yet. we hear it may be sunny. and maybe we will find our family again.did i say the albergue is closed in this town and that was our meeting place.
barb and i have so mucch fun. we say right here right now all the time. that is all there is we can control so little on the camino. it´s really fun.
we love you. and tañlpof you all the time. what?
mom nonna mary

in sevilla

hi everyone
today is palm sunday. we went to the cathedral,10 am, to a high mass said by the bishop. so much ceremony. vestments, inscense, candles, chanting, moments i love being brought up as a catholic. we took part in a long procession around the massive, beautiful cathedral,holding our palm fronds. the cathedral is enormous. it was a mosque in the past, the current bell tower was the mineret. i look forward to the blending of islamic and christian history through this region, knowing of course that it was war that brought change. not unlike a final four match with the buildings being trophies. ridiculous.
last night i woke at a little after 3. church bells signaled the passing of time- 3:15, 3:45 and on till just before 6. i thought of the last time i traveled, it was in morocco last summer. there too, a call to prayer kept me company as i lay awake. i liked the idea that around the world, people are laying in their beds united by a call to prayer. also,
i was told on my first camino by an italian man ´´the spanish never sleep``. i believe it is true. all night long there were groups of people walking by the hotel. some just talking and laughing. some singing and clapping their hands to a repeating beat, flamenco? maybe. all of it was happy. there wasn´t one harsh sound, no fighting, no broken bottles, just happy talk and full laughter. one voice takes command, tells a story the others laught, add a little, more laughter. in spite of the time, i loved listening. at 5ish the groups were less often, until only a bird sang. then the huge street cleaning machines came through. they used 3 cycles of sweeping and washing. 6 trucks in all. oscar, i could imagine a transformer street sweeper. think about the robot you could make from a street sweeper. clean-up guy. many powers.
barb and i have been outside listening to the guildes ( i think this is right) parading for semana santa, holy week. the costumes are eerie ( skittles colored kkk robes) and the music dramatic. a steady drumbeat with a heralding trumpet.we can´t really get close enough to see the floats etc. but the scene is amazing. i have a short film. but there is no usb connection on the keyboard or computer. i bet there are semana santa you tube clips already from a million others. take a look.
tomorrow barb and i begin to transform into pilgrims. we are no longer tourists. we have our credentiels and have our first stamp given to us in the cathedral. we have found the yellow arrows to lead us out of town. we are ready for the first step.

until later,
mary
ps. travel tip. when in a tapas bar, ask the server to bring you three tapas, fish, meat and vegetable- they choose. they bring you the most delicious plates and they slow down to explain what you are eating. perfect.

getting ready

Hi-
This morning I am starting final preparations for my next visit to Spain and the Way of St. James. I will be leaving on April 15. Now's the time to pack and unpack, weigh things, buy things, return things, and the most importantly- to spend time with my family.

This time my sister Barb and I will walk together from Seville in southern Spain to Santiago de Compostela. We will be walking on ground I have not been on. I don't think I'd be doing this again if it weren't for Barb. But there is something so sweet to be able to share this experience with her. I can't wait to begin.

I am really happy there is a map I could upload so that you can watch our progress. We hope to be gone 6 weeks and walk about 1000 km. Wait and see.

Mary