(Carrion de los Condes to Calzadilla de la Cueza: 17.3 km, 3 1/2 hours with one short break; 25,400 steps for the day)

Mark 1:35-39
v. 38 Jesus replied, “Let us go somewhere else—to the nearby villages—so I can preach there also. That is why I have come.”

I had thought about not even going to the pilgrim mass and blessing last night in Carrion de los Condes because I would be late but my heel and I hoofed it through the streets to the pretty little square and into Santa Maria. On my way to communion I noticed Tom the German composer. I was kind of surprised because the previous night he had told me he was having nothing more to do with the church. Yet he came forward for the prayer for the pilgrims and stood in line to receive a personal blessing from the sister. I spoke to him afterward and expressed my surprise. “You told me about the church and I came to try it out,” he responded. Now I was really surprised. “I felt real love here,” he said. Our brief conversation then gave me the chance to say a few things I hadn’t said in the previous village. Nothing changed his mind but he listened carefully; I suspected he might consider our conversation further. Preaching from village to village–that’s what Jesus said he had come to do. Even with my meager witness, is that some little part of why I have come here too? Lord, help me be faithful to proclaim your word in many ways, in any situation.

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It was just me and Maurice for breakfast in the basement dining room–no juice but a bowl of fruit, so we took some along for the road. We wrapped up our blisters, left our packs for pickup and, after putzing around looking for bread, left town at 8:45.

The guidebook said there were no “conveniences” for 17.2 kilometers, the distance we had decided to do today, though about halfway there was a cafe movil–no WC but tables in the shade. We walked on a long Roman road, the Via Aquitana, built up 2000 years ago from the surrounding marshy (at the time) ground with 100,000 tons of stone imported from somewhere else in the empire. Though now covered with fine gravel, it was the very same road, unspooling ahead of us white and straight to the horizon. Above was the deep blue of the limitless sky; to both sides flavescent fields unfolded to windmills scattered around the horizon; far to the right rose the Picos de Europa in a hazy purple jumble.

We walked steadily on–one, two, one, two, pain, two, one, two–and to our surprise arrived in Calzadilla de la Cueza by 12:15. Still having some energy, we decided to just pick up our packs at the hostel, put them on and keep walking. But our packs were not at the hostel. Too early for delivery? We walked over to the fuente for a picnic lunch while we waited. A Danish girl was perched on one end of a bench and the rest of the two benches was entirely taken up by two gay French guys who slowly and grudgingly consolidated to make room for us to sit down too.

Lunch finished and no packs. We consulted with the helpful hospitalero of the municipal albergue. It seems you actually have to call to have your bag picked up, which we hadn’t done. The bags had been magically transported the other times without any action on our part other than putting the euros in the envelope, but that was apparently because they were piled with other packs for the same service. Somebody called. This morning we were in an out-of-the-way place. I had felt uneasy about shipping the packs today, but if we had carried them I don’t think we could have gone any farther anyway. Hmm–now what? The energetic hospitalero called the transport people, who said they would go get them, and the packs were delivered in Calzadilla at 1:30.

By then we had talked ourselves out of walking any farther and checked into the municipal, only 5€ apiece for two beds among 24 almost sparkling with white sheets in a long upper room. There was a solid deluge of abundant hot water in the shower. After a brief nap, as I settled in my bunk to write, a group of men entered and stripped down to their shorts to head to the showers. The room was only about half occupied but there were just three women among us.

For dinner we went to the restaurant on a side street of this tiny one-burro town. We were seated at a table with Judy the Danish horse breeder, a German guy who did not approve of having the packs shipped, a Dutch couple who left St. Jean the same day we did (and we were sure no one else was as slow as us!), and two older South Korean gentlemen at the end who spoke zero Spanish and minimal English and said “no salad!” every time the waiter approached them. We had a big bowl of delicious bean soup, then I had another first course (salad) for my second course, then packaged ice cream cones for dessert, with friendly service by the waiters. We walked back to the albergue as the sky glowed pink with the remains of the day

The Meseta