Friday, September 17, 2010

Sleeping in a Church--Najera to Santo Domingo de la Calzada to Belorado.

Hello all,

Sorry I didn´t post yesterday for all those who might have thought I was dead or lying in a ditch or something (mom, mara. . . :-)).  The place we stayed yesterday didn´t have internet access nearby, so I had to wait until today for an update.  

The past two days were pretty uneventful on the Camino.  Yesterday we had the good company of two girls, one from England and one from France, who were a lot of fun.  Amy is from England and is a foreign diplomat with a pretty neat background.  Magdelun, no misspell there, is from France and is a midwife.  She was all about singing and I found that very helpful in passing time.  We sang everything from Sound of Music to old Disney songs which when sung in France were very entertaining.

We made it yesterday to Groñon and stayed at a Parroquial Albergue, another one run by the community church.  This was the most interesting place that we have stayed so far--we actually stayed in the Church.  No, not like in the parish hall, offices, etc., but actually inside the church.  Like almost every other church we have visited, this one was very beautiful.  We slept at the foot of one of the side altars and I actually slept at the foot of a 12th century baptismal font.  I know it sounds weird, but it was kind of nice.  Everyone else was very respectful and always kept their voices down and did very little conversing inside the church.

We had a community dinner with about 50 other pilgrims in the parish kitchen and met some pilgrims from Poland, Switzerland, and Canada.  Most of the pilgrims then gathered in the Church after dinner for night prayer and headed to bed.  

We woke up this morning about 6:30 and were on the road by 7:30--it has been taking me much longer than I expected to get ready in the morning, needing to make sure that all my stuff is there and ready to be re-packed.  It was a relatively short day, only 16km, but it was nice to spend a little more time at the hostel off of our feet.  It rained today as well, so our energy was pretty much sapped by the time we reached Belorado.  We grabbed some lunch off of the pilgrim menu and checked into the hostel.  

For the most part, the hostel is pretty nice.  Washers and dryers for clothes are nice, but we saw the first evidence of bed bugs--blegh!  We brought them to the attention of the hospitalero and he changed the sheets and allowed us to change rooms.  A refund sounds better, but we haven´t seen any after doing a rather thourough inspection.

We have a little bit of a longer day tomorrow so the extra rest today is going to help.  Again, know that you all are in my prayers.   Please pray for us.
peace,

Paul

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