Sunday, May 5, 2024
This morning we woke up to the sound of pouring rain. It’s miraculous and surprising, but this is the first morning of real rain that we’ve had on the Camino. Lately we have walked through some showers, but today promised (and delivered) constant heavy rain through the day.
To get the kids in the right frame of mind I showed them a YouTube video clip of Elder Uchtdorf’s talk about the Hobbit and the great adventure of life. It’s awesome!
It took us a while to get out of the albergue this morning. I think we were all a bit hesitant to step out into the rain. Because it’s Sunday we decided to do a shorter day. It’s our third sub-20 km day in a row, and that also had people restless. When we don’t hike as far it feels like we aren’t making progress.
Betty waked today like a woman on a mission. I had a hard time keeping up with her. I think she was cold and just wanted to get to our albergue. She didn’t seem to want to talk, just to get out of she rain.
Also, while we brought good cold-weather gear, it appears we didn’t bring the best rain gear. The dryest people on the Camino have bog ponchos that cover them completely -- pack and all. We only have rain jackets (shells) and rain covers for our packs. They are good for shorter showers, but not for hours walking in the pouring rain.
Lesson learned.
We are staying in the albergue municipal in Vega de Valcarce. It’s interesting because this town is “off schedule” meaning it’s not a place where the guidebooks typically recommend people end a day’s stage. So while there are many pilgrims on the Camino, there were only three other pilgrims in our entire albergue of dozens of beds.
When we got to the albergue, I got all the wet clothes hung up and then I ran to the market for some supplies to make pasta.
Later, Betty and I did some planning and we went to see if we could get something for dinner and breakfast. But the market was closed. It looked like we might not have any dinner, but then we found a bar that was open, and the bartender said she could get us some cheese and sausages.
So we went back for the kids and took them there. Over our humble little dinner we ended up having a really good talk with the kids. I hope to write more about it tomorrow, but the long and short of it is that Betty and I came to understand their concerns about some things, and I think they came to understand our point of view as well. I was really impressed by their ability to communicate in a very grown-up way about complicated feelings they are having.
Having cleared that air, we all walked back to the albergue feeling a bit lighter. By then the rain had stopped as well, and the weather forecast for the tough climb up O Cebreiro looks good.
It’s going to be a big day tomorrow.
