some corrections additions and last thoughts

hello from santiago,
it has been so long since i wrote. i think because everyone has smartphones, there are fewer internet places. and i dont know how to blog from my phone. but i'd like to write a few things before i forget them.
maybe a quick recap of the last two weeks or so. i think i last wrote to you from sanabria. well, the actual name is pueblo de sanabria. it is a beautiful old town, founded in 569. it has a castle from that time and a 12th century chuch all built on the top of a hill. the houses are built so close together in the old town, i could hardly walk between them.
my guide book says ´from sanabria the via de la plata clambers over a couple of mountain ranges before crossing into galicia.´'  where they could have added you will find more mountains.
(i think i said that we were in galicia long before we were)
i walked in a lot of woods, and actually got lost in one for 20 minutes or so.it was a  broom and fern woods. everything was high so it was hard to see and i kept walking into bog. it was sunny and i could hear the highway, so i was not really scared, but...after some time i started saying hello? hello? i heard something moving near me. it was a cow walking up the hill, i thought thatś a good idea. i went up and found the path and was at the albergue in no time.
the town we in in was named requejo. a town filled with stone houses, and stone slab stairs leading up to the second floor. the first floor is still used for animals, goats, chickens, lambs, cows. it was surprising to walk along a street and see audi's driving on one side and a cows face in a window on the other. these towns also still use community washing areas.
do you remeber how i said how great it was to walk alone, the freedom etc? well it seems whenever i make a declaration my guardian angel takes note and provides me with another view. i mentioned ruud, who's name i mispelled the first few times. well, we did keep to the same schedule and finally stopped saying to each other we like to walk alone, and spent the last 10 days or so walking together. i loved having someone to share experiences with. the first time we walked together,  we were walking on a highway, high in the mountains and not paying attention when we heard 'beep beep beep' and a truck passed us very close. the truck went on and on. it was carrying a blade for a wind turbine up the mountain. the truck stopped at the next gas station and we talked to the driver. the blade was 50 meters long, it was being carried on an articulated base so the truck to make quick corners. it was enormous. so me surprising thing happened everyday and i loved being able to laugh about them later. i am so thankful we met each other. we had a great time.
we had days in the woods in rain, and through tiny towns where we stopped to talk with women raising pigs, and a woman hearding goats and cows while crocheting. we met another shepherd who showed off his two day old lambs, another woman gave me her sweater because i told her i liked it. another gave us a big bag of fruit that seemed to be a cross between apricot and peach. two women were picking corn and stopped for lunch. i stopped to talk with them, they gave me a chorizo that one of them had made at home. it was so smokey and spicy. i thought this is what they are supposed to taste like.
i think our hardest day was one that was 10 hours of walking up and down mountains. that was the same day we met the women raising pigs and tending to the cows and goats. the villages are called venda da teresa, venda do espiño, venda da capela. they are way up in the mountains and isolated. there are wolves and so it is important that they stay with the animals. the towns consist of 5 houses lets say, and two of them with people living in them. there are no trees, it seems the hills are covered in heather and broom. it s gorgeous in it's own way. but 10 hours of gorgeous is hard too and we got into town at 7:30 just as it was getting dark. it rained all night and turned really cold.i ate leftovers from my pack for dinner- a cookie, a chunk of bread, sausage some chocolate.  starting out in the morning was hard for me,it was the first time i thought i shouldnt be there. walking in the rain and in a dark woods is hard for me. itś hard to see. i have to be really careful. ruud said not to worry, he would stay with me.  but the first thing that happened was the cow in the window, so how could i not laugh and start walking. i know people think i am fearless, but believe me, i am not.
i will quickly tell you the best day and then wrap up.
we walked into a town called albergueria. we had two hours left to walk, and it was time for a coke. the twon again was really quiet, a woman or man walking with a cane, a few dogs running around and then we heard classical music playing- it was coming from the bar. we entered and my first thought was ' they have a cd player . maybe i can ask them to play the cd i bought in sanabria. yes, sure they would. after that the owner luis played some local music he liked, then he gave me the cd! i hope it survived the walk. then he played john denver, and little richard. i played  him the music on my ipod, and it went on all afternon. we never left. we stayed at the albergue across the street, joined at 8 pm by a couple from portugal. they four of us ate dinner together. fatima and ruud played guitar and sang, i cooked and antonio got the heater running.
we had terrible weather the last two days, rain like ive never seen. it was some kind of storm off the coast. but the day we walked onto santiago was beautiful. ruud went home the next day and i took a bus to a little town on the coast. i came back yesterday and took an amazing tour of the roof of the cathedral, something that would not happen in america. i'll show you a photo.
i met a man from australia at breakfast who i went to mass with and walked around town with today. tomorrow i go to madrid and on to warsaw. then home on the 30th.
thatś really all that is on my mind today. i love walking in spain. i can't really explain how great it is. challenging for sure but the chance to make a family with total strangers in such a short time is the magic. i know that this is what people are capable of, what they desire. the closeness we can all have with one another if we just let it happen.
i am going to try to download some photos now.
i'll see you soon. i can wait to hold my daughters and grandsons.
with love and gratitude.
mary

hello
today i was so excited to call arthur and wish him happy birthday. alison kindly told me his birthday was yesterday. but that it was ok because he was having a birthday weekend.i felt terrible. thank god he is young.  i thought today was friday. i am so removed from life that the days merge, but that´s not the reason i got arthur,s day wrong.i just did.
we are definitely walking in galicia now. it is really more than hilly, i´d say these are mountains.switchbacks had not been invesnted when these paths were made. they are pretty steep. and today the sky was grey, feeling like it could rain at any moment, but didn´t. i stopped to draw a picture of a wall, and suddenly i heard music like a flute. i thought oh stop that. flutes playing in the woods? as i walked out of the woods and into town it was clear that a priest was saying mass over a loud speaker outside. it is the feast day of their patron saint. that seemed more normal to me somehow.
still i walk alone. ruut ( the correct spelling of the man from holland) and i cross each other on the way all day long, we both like to leave in the morning when it is light. he stops and thinks often, i just walk and take photos. i am sure i am thinking, but nothing organized. he passes me, i pass him, we say see you later and go on.then the 5 or 6 that are familar with each other have dinner at night.
nina, not nita, is the mother hen of our group. she makes sure we are all happy and fed. she is the most lovely woman. she is 67 like me and has a 34 year old daughter like me and a 6 year old grandson like me. her husband is great too.
yesterday and today the villages we went through are for the most part deserted. there is an elderly woman in black in almost each one, or a man with a hoe in his garden. each one has a chuch that isn´t open. the bells are silent. most of the adobe-brick homes are falling down. looking at these homes, you can see the bones, the hand cut wooden beams, and the carefully placed stones, all dry construction on the foundation and it seems like the homes were carefully, proudly built. now all that is left are the roses, big red roses among the fallen stones and timbers. i would like to know what these villages were like 50 years ago.we walked along grassy paths between falling stone walls all day. then down a huge hill and back up and then we are here, in pueblo de sanabraise or something like that. it´s big. it has stop signs. and a bakery and many bars. i bought a cd of galician music. it is so haunting, like this entire day.
one small complaint, i have two guide books and one app on my phone for this route. they are all pretty much useless. thank god for yellow arrows and helpful villagers or i wouldn´t be home for thanksgiving.
tomorrow we walk about 10 miles with one huge hill, then the next is a 20 mile day, up and down. i am about 170 miles from santiago,i love this part so much. i hope it continues to enchant me.
happy happy birthday sweet arthur. i love you. oscar and jude, have fun at the birthday party. i love you too. goodnight.

mom, mary, nonna

hello
i am in a beautiful albergue, sun shining through the window and some jazz playing on the radio. There is a flower garden outside of the window, pink azaleas and pink roses. across the street are adobe homes. i am in a town called santa croya del tera. i am at the edge of galicia. the weather these last few days has been perfect for walking. blue skies and cool temperatures, perhaps 65 to 70.
i have  a new group of pilgrim friends. a french couple, eveline and jean-marie, a spanish couple from leon, nita and mr.nita, a man from holland, root is the phonetic spelling of his name. there are secondary characters too, a spanish man and a young woman ( root says his 'nurse'.) and another single spanish man.
my walk from zamora to monmarta was kind of sad and hard, for no real good reason except that i didn´t have michaels laugh and the italians txt messages. but it seemed more than that.  somedays are just like that. the next day was the opposite, i could have floated over the land. all i saw were blue  skies, and various shades of brown fields. once and a while there would be a small vineyard. i have been thinking about what it means to walk not alone, but on my own. to me there seems to be a big difference. on my own i have such freedom.
the man from holland and the french couple and i have had dinner together the last two nights. the man from holland translates for the french and i. eveline has a very expressive collection of facial expressions and sounds that little translation is needed. yesterday i walked from granja to tabara. the morning again was cool, the full moon was visable opposite the rising sun. i started walking on rolling hills and fields.after two hours i got to walk on a scary rocky cliff over a river. the views were gorgeous. actually i ran into the spanish man and his nurse in a compromised position. they saw me, i said 'hola' they said 'hola' and i walked on.

in the first town, 6 hours after i started, a woman was walking with a big pail of green grapes. i stopped to talk to her and she gave me a big bunch to eat. they were delicious. she was very sure to tell me the grapes were 'sin chemicle'.the entire area she said grrows grapes sin chemicles.  a bit later on the edge of town a sheperd called out 'hola'. i stopped and he came over. i told him my grandsons would like his sheep. he asked me how old they were. then he asked me how old i was. then i asked him how old he was, he said 57, the same as you he said, young. he asked if i was alone, or married. in the meantime the sheep were milling around and the dogs were rolling their eyes, saying could we get back to work here. root told me later that the sheperd talked to him too. what if he is an extrovert, what a hard job for him.

 my walk was supposed to be 27 km. about 15 minutes before i was to finish, i lost my way. no more yellow arrows to follow. i ended up on a highway. i couldn´t decide which way to turn, right or left. that is when i made my worst mistake. i looked at a google map on my phone. tabara was to the left on my phone. i turned left and walked for 30 minutes before it dawned on me that i was walking east, not west. i was walking back to the town i had just left. ( the last two years i have walked south to north. all of the sudden i am walking west. i think that was why i was disoriented. the crazy sun wasn´t where i thought it was. damn. so i turned around and walked on the highway till i arrived in tabara at 5:30. i started in the morning at 8. i was so tired, dirty and thirsty that i checked into a hostel, not the albergue. that was the right decision.

i have learned an important lesson these last two days. be careful about asking a man where the camino is. he will tell you to walk on the highway, directly, either to the next town or to santiago. it makes no difference. and they are so confident because of course they are right.

today i ate wild grapes, beautiful wild grapes outside of  a deserted bodega  that eveline and jean marie discovered.  the grapes were amazing,deep purple, sweet and juicy. what a gift. i may like them better than the figs of the camino frances. oh by the way, in granja you can either walk north to the camino frances or west to the camino sanabrais. see in the photo-  one way or the other, now is the time.

i have to run to the famacia now. i have gnat ( i'm sure thats what they are) bites all over my face and hands. ouch and ick.

adios and love,
mom, nonna, mary

a few photos

here are a few of my favorite things. friends, sunrise, toast, fog, blue skies and all things roman.
also grey cows, cows with huge horns, sheep, local red wine, ear plugs, beds without any bedbugs, tapas, and the time to enjoy them all.
today is michaels last day. he is really sad. last night anna gave me a bracelet she was wearing for good luck. in the night i remembered how much they liked my obama pin and so michael and i ran to the bus station to give it to her and fabio. i was so happy we did to say ciao one more time.
that is all that is on my mind now. i´´ll be back another day.
i hope you have a good day too.
a dios.
mom, mary, nonna

hi again,
i am in a really dark internet place, so please excuse the typing. here is what we have been up to.
we are now in zamora. we have walked 20k from salamanca not in rain as we feared but on a cool windy day, sunny i think. we arrived at the alberque at 1 or so. there were 4 bunkbeds in a very small room, i got one closest to the door so that i would have fresh air. buy evening we had a full house, a man from venezuela, 4 from france, a girl from itay and michael and i. what a forlorn town, lots of wind, nothing open really bleak. the next morning we started out at sunrise (8am) and it was beautiful. we walked 20 km alongside a highway. the path was comfortable but not my favorite for walking. we actually walked by a hhigh security prison with many announcements. that was a break in the monotomy. we arrived in another dusty town called el cubo de terre de vino. but never saw a grape vine. we were crabby, the town a bit strange. there were a bunch of dogs running around, and two men talking, one with a voice box that was so loud we heard it a block away from him, then we walked by a tall thin woman in red and white flowered pajamas, standing in front of her house talking on the phone. the first bar we tried was closed, there was a second at the far end of town. we went in there and sat.  maybe 20 men inside drinking, playing cards, loud and happy. the whole thing was a sensual overload, especially aflter 5 hours of nothing.it seemed like a pedro almodovar movie.
 i was sitting staring i think, and then a woman walked up and touched me on the shoulder. she smiled and spoke rapid spanish about the camino and wished me buen camino. it broke the spell i was in. suddenly things changed. michael and i got our coffree, the man at the bar gave us a delicious tapa and all was good. by the time we started walking again we were laughing. we walked anouther 13km that we both said was the most beautiful of the whole via de la plata.
we stayed in villanueva campean, in an empty albergue. we slept so well, and walked into zamora today, about 22 km i think.
anna and fabio are here, we will have dinner in a minute. in the moring they leave and the next morning michael leaves and i begin this adventure on my own. really, there are no pilgrims here. i will have lots of tiem to think and be lonesome i am sure. i am not the least bit nervouse about it. i feel strong and i love the walking, a little less along side a highway, but i still love it.
there is very little chance to write on this way.i will whenever i can.
 tomorrow i will bring my camera to the internet cafe and see if i can download some photos.
it´s time for the going away party. adios
love,
mom

good morning everyone,
it is 8 am, michael and i are in salamanca now. we have walked 120 miles now. it feels like so long ago that i last talked with you here, but really i guess it´s not. it´s just that i have seen so much in these days.
this way on the camino for southern to northern spain is very hard. very very hard. it is hot hot hot and empty. that means that you definately can´t carry enough water. well, i have, but i don´t like it. water is really heavy, so instead of having a backpack with 18 pounds holding all the water i need for the day, mine has been 22 or 23 with barely enough water. we never even think about eating until we arrive in our next albergue.
this way is also extraordinary. first, there are roman ruins laying all about. some in piles and some still standing. i even sdaw one pillar that was used to hold an upper porch of a more modern (1800's) home. some have inscriptions that you can read, dates. i saw one that was dated 143 and another 127. there was one very large and famous arch called arco de caparra. we saw it just at sunrise, it was a brillant red. i have to touch them all. i can´t get over the fact that 2000 years ago someone carved this rock and now i can put my hands on this some piece. i think of the people living and walking on the same stones and i am in awe.

this way also has beautiful landscape. at first rolling hills dotted with small holm oak and cork trees. under them are sheep and cows looking for a little shade. there has been a nice breeze, temperatures i think is the high 80´s the sky is bright blue, the fields golden tan. the last fews days we have walked in fields of grain and sunflowers, but the grains and sunflowers have been harvested and so they too are empty. we have crossed one mountain range. and even there it was dry. i have seen postcards where these fields are filled with wildflowers. it´s a choice a pilgrim has- walk in the rain and see flowers or walk in the sun and avoid falling into an arroyo.
there have been four days where we walked more than 6 hours without a village. michael and i have walked alone every day. we are really lucky. we walk at the same pace, laugh at the same things, and love to stop to take photos. he takes 3 to every one of mine. but because of that i see things that i could easily miss. we both oversleep almost every day. we are the last to leave the albergues but arrive at the next albergue shortly after the early people because they often wander about in the dark trying to find the way.. the sun rises after 8 and we both hate walking in the dark.
our family of pilgrims consists of fabio and anna from padua, italy, two brothers from donegal ireland, a german couple, and michael and i. we spend lots of time with fabio and anna. they have the best energy and are simply lovely. i am finding a bit of italian and anna is very helpful to me. the irish brothers are in there 60´s maybe and they haven´t been together for 40 years. they are having a great time. they are going on to sanitago also, so hopefully i will continue to spend evenings with them. anna, fabio and michael are leaving in 4 days. i will really miss them.
here is the bad news. there is an infestation of bed bugs. in the last two towns the pilgrim albergues are closed because of them. the albergue in salamanca will be closed for two months. one evening there was a poor girl from australia who came to the albergue with bites all over her arms and legs. she couldn´t go inside. she had to sit outside while the woman who ran the albergue sprayed everything in her pack. still, she slept outside in her little tent. now when we arrive, there is someone who looks us over for bites. it is as if the bedbugs are making a pilgrimage to santiago. i imagine them with there little shells, clueless to the havoc they are causing. for me, i will wait and see and maybe stay in hotels...
its time to go for coffee now and a walk around town. í think of yu all during these last long walks, and especially love the photos i have gotten of oscar, jude and arthur. and there voices.
love,
mary

you can´t have enough water...

hi everyone,
well, here i am again, in spain, walking the via de la plata.
most amazing, really, is that i am walking with michael. he is the man that barb and i met along with his son last year when we walked. last night we sat in the same bar where we all watched a soccer match, drinking beer and eating tapas.  we stayed in the same hotel run by a very helpful family, with the same noisy happy crowd outside the window until 4 am. we both miss paul and barb and talked about them all day.
let me back up a bit though. ever since i left home, i have had the best luck. at least that´s how i think of it.  there is a lot of talk on the camino about angels appearing and helping in some way just when you need them, even if you don´t know you need them. i don´t know what to think .i don´t believe in angels, but who are these people who just show up when you need them? maybe they are aroung us all the time but we are too busy to notice them, right there, off on the edge of our periphery. maybe when we stop for just a moment we see them.  so here are my people. the young woman from northern spain who sat next to me on the plane, who told me which bus to take from the airport to the hotel, which tapas bars to vist in madrid, and suggested a walking tour of madrid so i would see the most hidden places. and the little woman ( often a tiny little woman will take your arm and help if you let her) who walked with me for two blocks to help me find my hotel. and the man who looked for me in the bus station to give me my hiking poles that i left resting against a wall. and the three new friends i made in the prado, three interesting lively people from new york. i don´t think i´ve every had a more thoughtful, personal, and challenging converstion with anyone within 5 minutes of meeting them. and jane offered to mail cards i bought in the gift shop so i don´t crush them in my pack. these good people are all over the place.
today michael and i walked for 6 hours in open treeless fields, fields with no homes, towns, bars, nothing. . that was why our guidebook said ,you cant take enough water. we just barely had two drops a piece when we arrived at the albergue. we were hot, tired and dirty. but after a shower, a beer, and a little nap all i can say is what a great day. i hope i can show you the sheep and cows  we walked with.
i am going to say goodbye now, and see if there is someone just off in the edge of my life that can help me download a photo.
love,
mary nonna mom