Castrojeriz

July 6th

We walked about 12/13 miles to Castrojeriz today, which takes us over the 200 mile mark. Woohoo! This village was established by Count Muño (or Nuño Nuñez), who defended the fort at the end of the ninth century against the Arabs. Before that it had been a Celtiberian, Roman and Visigoth fortress. We are staying at an albergue that is in a building that is 500 years old. 😳 The locals say that kings and queens would stop here to stay...crazy old history over here!

We are really enjoying walking in the early morning with the sounds of the birds as the sun rises. Most of our walk today was along dirt roads or paths with just a little road walking. We had a nice breeze again, and it did not get too hot. One of the videos I added has the sounds of the birds.

When we walked through the Arc de San Anton today, we could hear some wonderful jazz music coming from a bar/cafe area. We stopped in for drinks and met such a nice man running it. I’m talking with him, he gave us his motto on life: “One should only work for life...Never live to work. When you work for life, then you are happy, you have family, you have friends. You must know that is the important thing. Living to work is an unhappy life.” Very wise words spoken by an extremely happy man 🙂

We also met a man named Everett (from Los Angeles) who has been walking on the Camino since June 1st. His story of how long it took him to hike up and over the Pyrenees was inspiring. Inspiring because he did not give up, and kept on going for 14 hours! So far he has only been able to do about 10 kilometers a day, but he hopes to lengthen that with the new insoles he bought today. You would like Everett. Maybe we will see him again down the path. I sure hope so. I included a picture of Alan with him.

I have heard people say that the Camino is special, and we agree. A nineteen year old German boy said today that the Camino is how the whole world should be, and it’s so true. The leaders of the world could learn a lot from this.Read more