Six-sixty-six
Definitive clicks
Have you walked," said the hospitalero.
And on will I go
To Santiago,
Wearing my Tilley sombrero.
It was a jolly old time at the albergue last night, all six of us talking in a babel of tongues. Most interesting I found were the Italian and the Spaniard shouting at each other in their own languages. But making themselves understood.
"Six hundred and sixty-six kilometres you have walked," said our hospitalero, "from Seville." That's all very well, I thought, but that means we have more than three hundred still to go. And isn't there something significant about that number?
There was a bit of confusion as I left town this morning. Down the street to the right from the church, the yellow arrow had been crossed, but a local gentleman insisted that I go that way. After another crossed arrow, and a return to the local gentleman, I proceeded as directed and found he had given good advice. I came to an overpass over the new high speed train line and realized the arrow must have been crossed when the way was impassable due to construction.
It was another delightful day on a long gravel road through a pass in the hills beside a bank of wind turbines earning their keep, and in the distance I could see mountains ahead, perhaps the border of Galicia that I will have to cross.
Often the name of the town I'm coming to conjures up a romantic vision which is belied when I arrive. Santa Croya de Tera. A green and pleasant, fertile place. Instead, I walked between fields of leached-out soil on one side and weeds and dead grass on the other towards a low-lying town stretched out between an ugly white shed on the left and an ugly green shed on the right.
But I found a pleasant private hostel. I visited a Romanesque church In the next town, Santa Marta de Tera, barely a kilometre father on, famous for its statue of Saint James on the exterior wall. I met the Germans, Michael and Joerg, and another German, who apparently walks around in circles. As soon as he finishes one Camino he begins another, and never stops. Curiouser and curiouser.
No comments:
Post a Comment