Villafranca del Bierzo

Today we walked a long time in and out of the rain. The area we walked into is filled with vineyards and the hills are green and lush. The rooves of the houses are made of slate. The house is themselves are mostly made of stone.

Since it was raining on and off all day, we had ponchos on and ponchos off. We saw some of the most vibrant and beautiful rainbows! It was very very pretty today. The walk got to be a bit long!

It turns out that one of our Lisa friends is a wilderness first aid person. She helped me doctor my feet. She put lamps wall between my blistery toes and taped it in place. The other Lisa swears by arnica! We were all walking together today, and we stopped in a pharmacy to buy some vitamin C and zinc, because some of our fellow pilgrims are sick and also some arnica gel. My feet are a little achy as a result of my previous shoes not fitting well.
With all that preventive stuff and a couple of ibuprofen, the walk was pretty pleasant today. My new shoes appear to be a much better fit for me! I’m hoping the aches from my previous shoes will go away in a few days.

David was bummed today because he lost one of the new gloves we just bought yesterday. He was down on himself already because he hates losing things due to his memory challenges, and then he introduced himself to a friendly fellow pilgrim who we had just had ha drink and eaten octopus with a few hours earlier. I feel bad for him when his memory doesn’t work right. 😢 He gets embarrassed but what can we do? Pilgrims tend to be very nice an they just laugh off these gaffes. We are Al doing the best we can!

Finally a word about octopus. I’d prefer not to eat it as I love octopuses and know how smart they are! But at this cafe if you order a drink they automatically give you a plate of spiced octopus. So we tried it. It’s actually tasty but totally sad to eat.

We have a rest day tomorrow . We are in a little town. We would love to be able to do our laundry but I don’t know if that’s going to happen. We may end up washing multiple things in the sink and trying to hang as much as we can in the bathroom. We have fewer than 180 km to go! This is our last stop with our friends, Lisa and Lisa. It’s kind of sad; we make a lot of friends on the Camino, but everybody moves on pretty fast.Read more