Some days the internet gives up. Some days there just isn't any.
And some days it surprises you at the summit of a mountain where a dozen people hover around the cell tower which advertises free WiFi but doesn't deliver.
We lost Steffen again today. Suddenly, sadly and permanently. While putting my shoes on at 7:30 am, Mats informed me that Steffen was in hospital. Rob, who was sleeping in the next aisle to Steffen, heard what he thought was a loud explosion around midnight and a man yelling in Spanish 'We need help!'. Steffen had rolled off his top bunk and fallen onto the floor. They couldn't wake him and called for an ambulance. There was a bit of consternation when Rob and some fellow pilgrims found the front door to the albergue locked and no staff to open the door for the ambulance personnel. Somehow someone appeared, and the ambulance people managed to get in and wake Steffen and take him to hospital despite Steffen protesting 'I'm fine, I'm fine,' while blood trickled out his left ear. There are five hospitals in Burgos (that we know about). Thankfully Rob had kept calm and organized and had written down the name and address of the hospital that the ambul...
The albergue was a ramshackle house with an entrance patio, an entrance hallway stuffed with a beer fridge, a bench for taking off shoes, a wall of shoes, a corner of walking sticks, three doorways, a podium and people entering and leaving. One door led to a dining room with a massage table. This room, in turn, led to a bedroom with numerous bunks. Another door off the dining room led to a crowded courtyard with a foot bath, drying racks for clothes, a few tables and a tired dog. Another door from the entrance led to the W.C.s another to a crowded bedroom, and a staircase that led up to two more bedrooms with a dozen bunks each, a kitchen and a balcony. The highlight was massages by donation given by a young woman from Brazil. She asked where I wanted her to focus. 'Back?' ' No. Legs and feet.' She looked at my feet and with raised eyebrows 'I cannot do your feet. They are not clean.' And this was after my shower! She told me I had rocks ...
We left the beautiful old monastery in Roncesvalles after breakfast. We were among the last to leave. We stop at the road sign ' Santiago de Compostela 790k. The guidebook says 751. So does this mean the 'Way' is a shortcut? It is a thick Scottish mist intermingled with rain. It is a hilly section but, thankfully, small hills not mountains. At one point I decide if I am going to be wet, it might as well be a comfortable wet, not a hot muggy wet, so I walk without my Gortex jacket on. It's not like I am going to get hypothermia here in Spain. A tired Brad, me, Santiago from Argentinian, and Linda As Linda and I cross a road and enter a gated section, Linda closes the gate, but Elizabeth from Sweden says 'No, leave it open - a half marathon is about to start'. And there we are, in a marathon, leading the way. We quickly step aside and watch them blur past. I recognize Walter from Holland running. Walter had volunteered for a two-week stint at t...
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