A Departure, a Sad Anniversary and a 65th Birthday

I wake up for a couple of hours in the middle of the night of my 65th birthday. My legs are twitchy, I lay in bed thinking "I want to walk!". Why? 
And am I walking towards something or away from something. 
Or is it as simple as "I just love to walk."?
 This deserves some contemplation...

For now I get up and walk to the bathroom. That will have to do.

Manana

                          Morning Selfie
Tomorrow we are leaving Lonny. She will stay 1 more night here in Zamora then will make her way back to home and to husband in Nederland.
Today is also the 7th anniversary of the passing of Danielle's husband. She does not dwell on the sadness as she is a very strong woman with (as I have mentioned before) a joie de vivre. She says that is the French Canadian way.
Also of course, I turn 65 today. I am now a Senior Citizen. Does that make you feel old Mom?

                        Rest Time Anyone?

  

We believe that we have finally found the exact marker that is on the cover of our Gerald Kelly Guidebook. We are approaching Zamora; about 5 kms to go.

 Boot adjustment. Lonny is suffering from foot pain. Her departure was brought forward by 2 weeks due to her injury.

The vegetation changes slightly.

You can just barely see Zamora on the horizon. About 4 kms to go at this point.

 There are many markers along the way. These 3 have a poem inscribed on them. The poem is about hope and peace, a life journey and walking the camino. Although I didn't understand half of it, it seemed poignant.

 Entering Zamora. We stopped for an ice cream bar here. Temperature was around 25 I think. I do not know how pilgrims manage when it gets really hot.

Backpacks lined up in order of arrival.

 The Municipal Albergue in Zamora opens at 2pm. They were open on time and were extremely well organised, getting us all registered and assigned beds quickly. We 3 are in a nice 4 bedroom dormitory with a young Italian woman.

 A quick shower, a quick hand laundry, into skirts and off to the Plaza Mayor for a birthday meal. Our timing was perfect, sat down at 15:40 for a pilgrim meal ... cutoff is 16:00. Delicious Russian Salad and this fillet of sole. Lonny insisted on treating both of us which was overly generous. Hopefully we can treat her to breakfast in the morning.
There were many pilgrims in the square, every once in a while someone would wish me a happy birthday.    ....and it was!

Mi amigas got the waiter to bring a "birthday cake" which we shared. (as well as another dessert each which is part of the pilgrim menu)

 Off to explore the town. This is an interesting mural.

 There is a castle overlooking the river ... and with a moat.

The Cathedral next door to the castle.
If you have added Salamanca to your bucket list you might as well also come to see Zamora. A very charming town with good atmosphere and great food.

 This view is from the castle. I love the storks. As I am writing this I can hear the storks that are nesting near the albergue. Mom and Keith, they make that clicking sound with their beaks similar to the nesting albatross on Kauai. Everytime one mate returns to the nest they go through this lovely ritual.

This is the beautiful Roman Bridge that we crossed as we entered Zamora on the camino.

                 Stinky Boots All In A Row

It is a perfect warm evening and our bedroom window is open. It opens on to the street, the very steep curvy street (much steeper than Decaire!). Cars need to really gun it to get up and their tires squeal on the paving stones. Earplugs tonight for sure.

So what a fabulous day and what a great celebration of turning 65.
Thank you all that emailed me today. I love you all and I love how many of you have told me that you start your day reading my blog. I am starting to feel some pressure here! The last week has been a combination of bad or no wifi and busyness so the entries have not been as thoughtful. Today we packed it in early though so I had lots of time.
Mom thank you for bringing me into this wonderful life and for nurturing me through it.
Keith and Chip, thank you for supporting my adventure.
Here's to another great year.
Life Is Good!!!

26 kms to Villanueva de Campean

 Leaving Casa Saso after a quick 7:30 am breakfast.
We all were very cold overnight. In hindsight we needed our sleeping bags as well as the privided sheets and blankets.
 This church is in the middle of nowhere.

 The 1st 13 kms are on a path that runs parallel to the busy highway about 50 feet away. Not the best part of our day.

Here it gets better as our path is a distance from the road.

Early morning long shadows. It was cold!

          Lunch Break. It is nice to use my poncho to sit on instead of for the rain.

Danielle was needing more breaks.

Here the scenery gets more interesting.

 Approaching our destination of the sad little town of Villanueva de Campean.
This is not quite the same post as on the coverr of the guidebook.

 Am going to post now. There is wifi only in the bar, not at the albergue. It is time for dinner (finally) and there is lots going on.

It is raining not far off ... just an isolated shower. Nothing but sun in the forecast.

An Important Lesson

Saturday night on the main square of a Spanish city is not quiet. There were celebrations and good ole partying happening all night. Ironically I slept fairly well.

We ate our muesli, yogurt, banana and a bakery treat in our room and got on our way at about 8:15am.

Our room was very nice, bright and clean with a sink and shared bathroom down the hall. Location location location it cost us 25€ each. We felt very fortunate to have gotten a room on this busy weekend.

 It took only about 30 minutes to get to Salamanca's outskirts. Then a km or 2 of walking alongside the road.

 Most of the kms were on country roads like this.

Today is election day in Spain but it feels like any other quiet Sunday. Seven kms brought us to the village of Aldeaseca de la Almuna where we found the local bar open for business.

 Another 5 kms later we walked through charming Castellanos de Villiquera.

At the 16 kms point we had another coffee break; as they offered no food we ate from our own supplies. I had been carrying an avocado for 1 entire week -- it was perfect!

The Albergue here looked very appealing, a pilgrim acquaintance advised us that there were no bunk beds .... so no racing for the bottom bunk.

But moot point for us as we were not yet stopping.

 Rest stop so why not take some photos.

 A total of 23 kms and we arrived at
Well...
Paradise
Carmen and Alberto run Albergue Casa Saso near Huelmos (haven't seen the town yet, I expect it is tiny). Carmen met us at the gate with joy and affection telling us that we were strong mujeras and that we were welcome. She placed us in a small trailer apart from the main building. We have 3 beds in 2 rooms. Danielle kindly insisted on giving me the "matrimonial" bed in a room by myself as an early birthday gift. (Did I mention that I am 64 and 363/365?)

 Alberto signing us in and stamping our credentials. We pay a bit more to have the trailer on our own. My bed is 20€ (the other 2 in the twin room pay 15 each), 10€ for this evening's dinner made by Carmen using eggs from her chickens and tomatoes from her garden, and 4€ for breakfast.

Carmen serving us our dinner.

First course; pasta with a tuna tomato sauce

Second; fried eggs, fries, fried pork

Dessert; apple and yogurt

Very typical pilgrim menu

Delicious but not one vegetable

Often I will have a salad for 1 meal to balance it all out.

I have not seen any broccoli on a plate in Spain. (nc - that is just the way it is)

So what is the camino lesson learned?

On my camino I have had two meltdowns.

The first was not too serious but the second, well there was melted chocolate everywhere.

Lonny advised me to carry my chocolate next to the water bladder.

                     Works like a charm!!!

This night's accommodation.