Is hard to believe that it is slowly coming to a conclusion. It was a short hike today. Tomorrow is a 15 mile day, the second to last day, so ending with a challenge, but the day after is only about 10 miles. Then that is it. Back to Madrid.
I feel both glad to be heading home after a successful challenge and sad that the daily adrenaline rush will cease.
Meet David and Miguel Luis ( both spanish ) at the albergue. We walked around town, watched a shepard bring his flock up a hill, and climbed an abandoned church and rang the bells. ... just crazy.
Abandoned church and rectory. Like many small towns, existence in the modern world is not sustainable.
Reservoir along the Rio Tera
One of the caminos little miracles. Both my camino guides said that there were no services in Villar de Farfon. However here is an albergue and the door was open. A Christian missionary and his family established residence there to serve pilgrims. We had coffee and cookies at just the right point in the day's hike
Saying goodbye to Rejean of Quebec, Canada. He developed an inflammation in his leg and had to cut short some hiking. He is getting on the bus to Sanabria for a day of rest.
This was another little miracle. Two days ago I said goodbye to him and a whole crew of pilgrims. Today I could have simply walked thru Rionegro, but I chose to stop in the albergue and there was Rejean.
We caught up while waiting for his bus. He showed me a message that Uli left for me in the sign-in book. A personal message to me ...
Rejean and I talked about our pasts and caminos not taken, and futures and caminos we will take ( painting for him and writing for me ); we talked of the material world outside of us and the spiritual being in all of us, the choices we make and don't make and the choices we can change ( he has a 2nd house in Florida, but the price is to be away from family and friends, so he and his wife are selling to stay in Quebec city during the winter with loved ones instead ) ...
This albergue is one of the oldest in Spain, almost 1000 years of service to pilgrims by the Confraternity of Filafos. Not the same building, of course, but the service.
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