In Burgo Ranero

I left the Peaceable Kingdom this morning, home of my friend Rebekah and her husband Paddy. They live on the camino in a small town with 5 families and a total of about 30 people. But it has recently added an albergue and a bar, so things are hopping there. I had a rest day yesterday that was a lot of fun. For lunch, they took me to a town off the camino, called Villada, where Pili´s restaurant served an incredible menú del día, mainly to workers. I had a cochinillo (known in English as roast suckling pig), even though I am not a meat eater. It was incredible, really. After lunch, we bought a can of spray paint and went back to the last 40 kms of the Camino de Madrid (in Rebekah´s car, NOT on foot), and found the places where the arrows were missing or confusing. So there are now several key places where I have spray painted arrows. It gave me a good sense of doing some little thing for the Camino. I hope that someone will not get lost because of our little effort.

Last night, there was no way another meal was going to fit in our stomachs, and Rebekah opened an incredible bottle of Toro wine, taken out of their own bodega, an ancient wine cave on the hill next to the town. All I can say is WOW. It was a great way to spend the evening, our conversation went from one end of the political spectrum to the other and it was really nice to have a few hours of heart to heart English talking.

This morning I left their home at 6:30, and by 12:30 I was here in the booming town of El Burgo Ranero (frog-man town), about 28 km from Moratinos. What a difference. In the first two hours, I saw more peregrinos than I had seen in my entire first two weeks. Many groups have already formed, so I´m kind of an outsider, but this morning I had nice chats with a couple of German girls (who were laughing and laughing -- and I told them they reminded me of my very first Camino with Dana, on which I laughed and laughed till I couldn´t laugh any more), a Cuban woman (with a very complicated and interesting immigration story), and a Brazilian from Porto Alegre (who, like all Brazilians, told me that my very bad Portuguese was just perfect).

The city of León, which I dearly love, is 37 km away. I´m still not sure whether I´ll plow through all the way, so I can have a rest day there, or just split it up into two. Decisions, decisions. I am enjoying the "moving sidewalk" of the Camino Francés, and I am happy to have the human contact.