Days 9 and 10 - Santo Domingo to Ages

Dinner in Santo Domingo after I wrote my last post was a wonderful affair. The mother of the hospitalera cooked dinner for us all, my little spanish family of all the uncles I never had: Alberto (Spain), Joao (Portugal), Sam (Rome), Attila (Prague) and Mario (Quebec). They're all so awesome and family-like and the only males other than family males and a few exceptions that I have really felt comfortable with. I guess you get that when you're staying in dormitories and eating dinner together and all that. Sadly we split up the next morning, as we decided to take it easy and only walk 12km to Villafranca de Montes Oca (spelling?), while everyone else pushed on another 16km to Ages, where I am tonight. So we're one day behind them all. But I'm sure that we're going to see them all somewhere along the camino... I just know we will.

Anyway, dinner was hilarious and delicious and everything. We had soup Castillano (which is made of garlic and bread and chorizo which I fed Rachel), bread, salad, tortilla patata (which seems to be a staple here - not that I'm complaining!) and all sorts of pastries and sweets for dessert. The Spanish mama (I don't know her name) was so great, we immediately adopted her although she didn't know any english. Alberto translated back and forth between us. So lovely to have a family and dinner together.

The next day's walk was short and extremely windy. We walked uphill most of the way, and the wind steadily increased the higher we got, until we were literally being blown around and stumbling towards Villafranca, where we met Sam and Joao (See, I knew we would meet them again...) briefly before getting into a long conversation (kind of) with this old Spanish man who loved the fact that we were pilgrims from Australia. There are a lot of little old men in the villages we pass through, and almost all of them stop to chatter away at us in really fast Spanish that we all have no hope of understanding. We usually manage to catch only the names of villages and a couple of phrases relating to where we have walked from and that sort of thing. It's much easier to understand bits and pieces of Spanish than speak it! He directed us all up to the hotel (called a luxury hotel in the guidebook... and I have to say it was pretty luxurious) on the hill, where we ended up staying for he night because their albergue was closed. We all had really long, hot baths and there was unlimited hot water, and real beds with real blankets and quilts and everything. We even slept in until about 8am, which is usually when we're about to leave the albergues in the morning. So good!

Rachel and I went out for dinner (Ariel stayed in the room and nibbled her stockpiled food and talk to her mum) in the local bar restaurant, which was a great experience, because being a Saturday night, the bar was packed with all these people from the village watching Madrid vs some other team playing soccer on the TV. The restaurant was in another room, but even from there we could hear the screaming and cheering every time someone scored. It's very different to Australian pubs and bars (the few I've been in), because when people are screaming and shouting in Australia they're usually pissed. Here they're just enthusiastic and it's really fun. We ordered the menu of the day (the waiter knew enough English to tell us what was what on the menu) and I had pasta, then a whole trout, head and all (which I obviously didn't eat - the head I mean), which was absolutely delicious, and chocolae pudding for dessert. And of course, free bread and wine and water and everything. I even drank half a glass of wine - see, Tommy? :p It was pretty fun - I think I'll probably eat out more often along the way. Not everywhere has a kitchen or a shop for food.

Today's walking was great again, even though it was raining and very windy again. We walked through woods for most of the day (which was short again, 16km), and then through some fields that reminded me of pictures of England. All misty and green and rugged and very, very pretty. Walking for the last couple of days has been quite nice, and today my feet were only a little bit sore and I felt great after getting to the albergue. Maybe I'm getting the hang of it all now. My blisters have also all healed, so my feet are more or less back to normal. Funny how you go from rock bottom to on top of everything in a few days.

Tomorrow we are continuing on to Burgos, which is about 20km away from this village. We're thinking of staying for two nights there and exploring the city on the second day before walking on and starting to cross the meseta, which stretches on for days and days with no mountains whatsoever. I felt like savouring the three mountains we tackled today, seeing as there won't be any for such a long time!

Ariel was reading my blog the other night and said that I was making her sound like a really mean and nasty person, so I'd just like to clarify (while she is reading voer my shoulder) that she isn't actually quite that bad. She's pretty great, actually, for someone crazy enough to walk this whole thing. She has a sore foot now too, so we're balancing eachother out with all our aches and pains. I guess that's the way it works here. So yeah. In short form, Ariel = good. Keep that in mind. Ok, and now I'm being told I have it wrong again, that she was actually wanting to stop when I didn't, except there was actually nowhere to stop (to stay) and she only wanted to stop for lunch and I just wanted to get there. But we know what we're on about so don't worry, things are good.

And that's all for now! Don't really have anything else to report at the moment, other than that I'm good and walking is good and sleeping is good and stretching out and doing some yoga on heated floors is very good. Although since beginning to walk I have lost all my flexibility I had in the last term of school. But I think my calf muscles have grown already. I swear they have. Ha.