Tineo

Day 26
My back was really badly in spasm last night, but this morning I felt well enough to walk, slowly, having sent my rucsac on to tonight's hostel by pilgrim taxi. It was tough in places, when I was feeling drained, especially when it was also raining. But remarkably the landscape felt really English today, and therefore kind of homely, with green green fields spreading out gently in every direction, woodland paths, stony and muddy, and almost every flower the same as at home: foxglove, daisy, dandelion, aquilegia, bugle, honeysuckle, bluebell, greater and lesser celandine, campion ... you get the idea.

I met some great people, the slow ones who saunter along at the back end of the day's flood of pilgrims, like José Luis (apparently the most popular name in Spain, I've met three already) with whom I sheltered from the heaviest rain alongside Isabelle from France and the local magazine delivery lady. He made really nice jokes the whole time, the sort that make you really laugh because they are so silly, in Spanish-plus-hands; we were all made to feel as if we were part of some big warm huggy friendship thing together, in all spontaneity. My conclusion is that this man is simply fluent in communicating - the language being relatively irrelevant. Three weeks ago all I knew in Spanish was hasta la vista (didn't know what it meant) and vamos a la playa (only useful in some locations), but now I'm able to laugh at jokes and understand when someone is talking about the deeper meaning of the Camino. Jose Luis, that is, when we walked together a short distance later in the day; surprising, in a way, after all his joking around.
Google translate helps when ordering food or wanting to take advantage of a two-for-one offer in the supermarket, otherwise I can now proudly claim to 'get by' in this language, mostly of course because of my Italian.

I'm sending my bag on tomorrow as well. Hooray.En savoir plus