4caminantes

We made it to Santiago on July 24th!

When we got there we got our credentials and went to the pilgrim´s mass. The cathedral is great! There is a huge botafumeira (to burn incense in) that swings from the ceiling and is moved by 8 men pulling on a rope. It swings so high it looks like it´s going to hit the ceiling!

That night we celebrated by having a great seafood dinner! There were also fireworks in front of the cathedral and lots of music in the streets.

We are enjoying having our own apartment with a kitchen.

On the 25th we went to a long celebratory mass, preceded by a procession. We´ve just been happy to relax, eat, celebrate and shop!

We were in Melide yesterday, which is a town famous for its Pulperias or octopus restaurants. For lunch we decided to try one out, the restaurants have a counter in the front where you can see them cutting up live octopus which they then steam and top with olive oil, salt, and spicy paprika. The octopus is served on wood platters at long wooden tables with benches, we also ordered potatoes, shrimp cooked with butter and garlic, and little green peppers charred and drizzled with oil. Our meal was paired with a really  sweet white wine, which we drank out of shallow clay cups. Dessert was a soft local cheese and fruit pate. It was all so delicious, as we get closer to the sea the seafood gets fresher and cheaper! Can´t wait to eat scallops in Santiago!

We now only have two days left of walking, tomorrow we are going to walk about 34km and the next day only 5km when we will get in line so they can check our credentials to make sure we walked the last 100km and then we will go to the pilgrims mass where they will announce all of the countries of the pilgrims who arrive in Santiago that day.

We have only 5 days left of walking, the camino has become a lot more crowded because some people start closer to Santiago. The albergues get full a lot earlier now so sometimes we have to walk to the next town or stay in sports centers, which isn´t too bad because they are usually cheaper . The camino is overall a lot cheaper than we thought, while most restaurants have a pilgrims meal for about 8 to 10 euros we have been making our own meals which average to about 1.50 per person with the occasional splurge on ice cream, hot chocolate and tortillas.

We are excited to get to Santiago and stay in one place for more than one night!

Also we are much better at waking now and can walk over 30 km without being exhausted!

I thought I would write a little post about the birds that we see everyday. There are three main ones, the storks, the sparrows, and the pigeons. All three are usually in the town and the storks and sparrows always seem to be around the churches. The storks are huge and build large nests on the top of the church bell towers. You could fit a large beach ball in their nests. The sparrows fly in circles around the churches it seems like they are always moving. The pigeons are fairly noisy.

We spent an extra day in Leon so we could see the city we went out for tapas we had potatoes in aioli and marinated mushrooms and croquette with potato or cheese filling.

… my time ran out and so did my Euros!

We are more than halfway to Santiago!! We´ve walked roughly 444 km!

On the Fourth of July we celebrated by singing patriotic songs, had ice cream, and sparkling wine. We really wanted to make hamburgers for dinner, but had no luck at the supermarket. However the next day we found ground beef and made hamburgers for lunch!

We stayed in Carrion de Los Condes on July 5th at a parroquial albergue. The place was run by nuns, who were really awesome! We had a music sing-a-long and sang songs in Spanish. One of the nuns also played the guitars, and they asked for people to sing songs in their language. We sang ¨Amazing Love¨, three Koreans sand a song, an Italian sang, and a Korean played the harmonica!  After a community dinner we had a final ceremony, where the nuns gave us a blessing.

That night we also met a priest from Italy, traveling with two seminarians from India! On July 6th the priest said mass for us in the town´s church – it was only pilgrims at the mass and he said it in English, which was a nice change! (I loved being able to understand the homily!)

Last night we stayed in another parroquial and helped prepare a delicious meal. It was a potato soup with vegetables. We also had aoeli (mayonnaise with garlic) on bread (or potatoes) which is soooo good!!

Today was a long day – 26km! Tonight we are going to have a meal with some Koreans we met a few days ago. We´re excited for the meal!

Tomorrow we are walking to Leon! Only 20km.

-E

Internet is sometimes hard to come by especially when we stay in the parochial albergues the machines are in the public alburges and it costs  1€ for only 20 min!

We stayed in two really great albergues right in a row. The first San Anton was a ruined church and monastary. The room we slept in used two original walls and it was only last year that they added the doors to replace the tarp that streched across, the bathroom still had the tarp. The abergue didn´t have electricity but we had an awesome dinner of Paella that one of the hospitaleros made. During the night there was a huge storm and the roof leaked and rubble from the walls would fall on you after a large clap of thunder! But it was still a really cool place to stay!

The next night we stayed in an albergue also in an old church with no electricity run by Italians we ate by candle light and the hospitaleros did a foot washing ceremony and blessing.

We are now halfway finished walking!

-k

So we thought it´d be fun to write a blog post solely about food!

Most of the time we cook our owns meals in the albergues´kitchens. Most meals include some sort of grain, lots of fresh vegetables and beans (or some other protein). One of the best meals was a cous cous dish with lentils, onion, zuchinni and tomato sauce. I love this sort of cous cous because it´s about 4 times bigger than the kind we usually get in the US. Another really good meal was the bean salad we had on the first night with gorbanzo beans, white beans in tomato sauce, onion, zuchinni, and tomatoes.

Breakfast is juice with some sort of fruit and sometimes bread. For lunch we either have a bag salad (aka a salad made in a plastic bag) or bread with cheese or avacado. And Nuetella, there´s always lots of that!

Some of the best meals have been at the parroqual albergues, as so far they´ve been giving us dinner and breakfast. One of the best dinners was a lentil soup with potatoes, goat (we think…might be lamb though), and sausage! Another night we had a tortilla (potatoes, eggs and cheese). We´ve also gotten some good wine, excellent watermelon, and tasty salads.

Yesterday was Sunday, and it was hot out, so we had an afternoon snack of Magnum ice cream. Magnum (which is now coming to the US) is delicious!!!! We got kinds with a hard chocolate outside and vanilla ice cream on the inside.

That´s it for the moment!

Adios!

-E

There has been a request to describe the architecture and churches more so here it goes:

Many of the the smaller towns are build on hills and so the streets are steeply inclined, narrow, and winding. The buildings almost all have red tiled roofs and the houses are often build out of rectangular hollow bricks and covered in stucco. The towns seem to be a mix of old and new buildings often old walls are incorporated into a new building. The towns also usually have a public square or two with a fountain where we always fill up our water bottles. Each town also has a tienda (shop) a panderia (bakery), a pharmacy, and a butcher.

Each town has its own church the styles are different in each town, but most are romanesque or gothic. Each church seems to have a beautiful statue of the Virgen and baby Jesus. And many churches have a special statue with cloth clothing which they use during processions. Stained glass is in small quanitites and the churches are pretty dark

-k

The walking has become easier and our feet hurt a little less at the end of the day. Singing and eating Nutella along the route help us keep going. There have been some beautiful views at the top of hills of wheat fields and vineyards. We have met people from many different countries and have been in a new church or two every day! Some of the churches are so beautiful where above the altar to the ceiling is carved wood painted gold with many statues of mary and st. James and other saints. Some of the churches are very old and have mideval statues and murels can´t wait to show all of the pictures!

-K

Day 5: Puerta la Reina to Estella

It was really hot and sunny on our walk of 22.4 km.  We walked through many hay fields and through several towns. It was so hot that when had to stop for popsicles on our way through one of the last towns. It really helped to rejuvenate us on the final leg to Estella.

We stayed at the best place there, called San Migel - and is a pastoral albergue. The best thing about it was that it was donation free, and they gave us 2 meals (dinner and breakfast). It was nice to not have to go out and shop or to cook. Our hosts were really nice and friendly.

Day 6: Estella to Los Arcos

Today was a bit shorter at 21 km, and the weather was nicer since there were many clouds. Today was rough, despite all that, though. For some reason we were all tired, and we walked through seemingly endless amounts of wheat fields!

The best part of the day was the wine fountain in Bodegas Irache – it´s free and there were even small wine glasses in the vending machines there!

Our albergue today is called Amigo del Camino de Santiago and it cost €5.50.