Preparing again

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 Just under two weeks to take off.



These boots are made for walking 



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San Clemente to Las Pedroneras - Staying cool through kindness

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Kindness helped me stay cool. The milder temperature and gentle tail winds helped but it is kind people who help one another in need. I felt that kindness today.  No one about when Sancho and I needed breakfast. So I ‘stopped into a church I passed along the Way.’ The devotion to Mary is something very special amongst Spaniards. There were mostly older people there preparing for mass. Breakfast was not happening any time soon, so we headed out to the plains once more. Can you spot the yellow arrow? I missed it but got back on track soon, to be  surrounded by poppies, garlic and wheat fields. The Las Pedroneras region is known for purple garlic. I walked in fields of gold. I stopped for breakfast. Some one even left me an old Coke bottle- The Gods Must Be Crazy- most quixotic. I left it behind. Over the next rise -  the medieval castle of Santiago de la Torre strategically placed to regulate trade and travel  Sandy paths were soft and I made an imprint. Sancho left me for someone else a
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Body and soul - we have made it to the Atlantic. Seven weeks ago I walked off the beach at Valencia with hopes of walking ‘coast to coast’ and practically no Spanish. Today my hopes have been fulfilled - y tengo un poco de español.  Thankfully, Spanish people are kind to foreigners like me. That will be a lasting and treasured memory. As a solo peregrino, I needed to communicate and be with the locals. That was challenging and made this journey so fulfilling. Everyone was up early this morning and the classic breakfast of coffee and tortilla went down so well. Pre-drawn darkness and misty rain added to the excitement - around 31kms. Funny - by now it is more about time than distance.  How long will it take? Not long after - the road forked - right to Muxia, left  to Finisterre. I turned left, and passed a welcoming donativo stall. How generous!  The spiritual is always there - somewhere. There are stone walls all around Galicia and other provinces. I wonder who built them and why does
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