An iconic camino image...the meseta

Here's an iconic image from the camino. This was taken just outside Fromista, one of the towns on the meseta, the high plateau that stretches across some of the middle stages of the trek. It drives some pilgrims nuts! Long and fairly flat, no mountains, few variations in the landscape, few trees to provide shade, and (as you see from this photo) fairly uniformly colored after the harvest. I, on the other hand, loved the vast, open, empty feel of the meseta (perhaps because I live in a densely crowded city, I enjoyed walking through its opposite).

Sleeping Arrangements...

Here is a photo of sleeping accommodations (by the way--the photos may show up on your screen as little blank boxes with X's--just click on the box to see the photo)...Usually about 50 or so pilgrims would wind up in a small town on any night (more like 100 in larger cities). We would pay about $6 or $7 to stay in a "refugio," a pilgrim dorm like that pictured, that might be administered by a locality, or by a fraternal group like the Knights of Malta. As you see from the photo, it's pretty close quarters--like sleepaway camp. This one pictured was about as good as they got; others were on the pretty claustrophic end.. In some cases you were assigned a bunk; in others you grabbed an open bed. Falling asleep was usually not a problem: the lights go off at 10PM, and by that time most folks seemed to be exhausted enough to fall asleep despite the snoring....The morning was another story. As early as 4:30 or 5:00 AM one would hear the early risers unpacking and re-packing noisy plastic bags into and out of their knapsacks as they got ready to head out and beat the sun. by about 6AM, more or less everyone was awake whether they wanted to be or not...I'll probably report in another post about hygiene and other aspects of refugio living.

Don't get lost....

The camino is remarkably well sign posted. Here are a couple of markers. Those blue directional pointers seem to pop up uncannily almost any time one feels confused about an upcoming turn. The other type of sign, sponsored by our friends San Miguel brewery!,is rather less frequent, usually posted right outside a bar to remind the poor pilgrim how much further you have to go.

Over the course of a typical week there may be 1000s of little turns to be made, so you have to pay pretty close attention even though the route is well sign posted. Most of us went at least a little astray now and then--by not paying enough attention, or walking in the morning darkness before daybreak lit up the waymarkers, or victimized by a sudden bit of road construction that interrupted the route. All in all, though, I have to hand it to the volunteers and provincial governments that keep the route so well waymarked---leaving pilgrims free to enjoy the landscape most of the time rather than worry if they are on the right track...