New provinces, new friends

We´ve moved into La Rioja, the second of four provinces that we´re going to be passing through on our way to Santiago. The first was Navarra, which was predominantly Basque country, then the third is Castille y Leon and the fourth is Galicia. Rioja is known for its incredible wine, and even in the context of the communal pilgrim meals we partake in every night the ¨vino tinto¨ is yet to diaappoint. Even the cheap stuff is amazing. The landscape is a bit different than that of Navarra, which is situated int the smaller mountains and foothills of the Pyrenees. La Rioja is a bit flatter, with the horizon dominated by plateau-like hills similar the ones that might be found in the greener parts of the American west. Castille y Leon is dominated by the ¨meseta,¨ which is a desert-like, sun-beaten, elevated plateau, and Galicia is wetter and known for its incredible coastline.

Walking through rolling hills and vineyards instead of steep, rocky slopes has provided a bit of a reprieve for both Paul and I. Paul´s been hit pretty hard with blisters, and my knee is still acting up, although a light day today seems to have allowed joints to loosen up. I can feel my body strengthening with each passing day--we started off our journey having difficulty completing 20 kms in 6 hours ... now we´re doing 30 kms in 7 or so hrs with few problems.

We´ve fallen in with a group of approximately 15 or 20 people who have been staying in the same town since we left France 8 days ago. There are very few young people around, Paul and I are two of the youngest. The Camino is flooded with younger Europeans, we´re now hearing, in July and August, when school gets out and when folks typically get more time off from work. If I had to guess, I would say that the average age of the crew around us is in the mid- to late 30s. This hasn´t prevented us from having an amazing time, however. There are, of course, a bunch of folks from France and Spain on the trail, with tons of German-speakers and a good number of Italians. Paul has been getting to use his German quite a bit, and my French is still coming in handy. Right now, we´re walking with a German who´s 29, and Irish guy who´s 33, and kid from El Salvador who´s 20, and a man from western Australia who´s 68 and who is constantly being held up by the rest of us. There are very few Americans, a bunch of Brazillians, several Koreans, several folks from Japan. The auberges we stay at every night represent a sort of diversity one doesn´t usually see outside of the U.N.

In recent days, several guys we´re walking with have remarked that they´ve stopped writing in their diaries. Everyone gets into the auberges after 8 or so hours of walking and are so beat up and exhausted that writing has seem to become a nuisance. It´s disappointing to many, because there are so many conversations that are had by myself and others every single day that merit a novel, much less a diary entry. Maybe it´s the fact that pilgrims are working so hard that they´re becoming delusional, maybe there´s a religious zeal to goes into it, maybe it´s just the result of the coming-together of intelligent folks with similar ideals, but the mystico-philosophical depth that is reached some days is unexplainable. Combined with a breath-taking countryside and an alien culture that´s becoming more and more familiar, it is other pilgrims as much as it is Spain that makes the Camino what it is.