Cobbled streets of Castrillo de los Polvazares.

It felt good to be walking again after an extra day's rest in

Astorga. I was refreshed both physically and spiritually. In El

Ganso I stopped at a bar and had an ice cream and cafe solo. It

was hot, as usual, and I appreciated the cool dark interior of the

bar. Just as I was leaving, a group of boisterous pilgrims

entered, several couples traveling together. They were very well

dressed, I thought, for a pilgrimage, and unusually loud and

gregarious. I walked a few meters further and encountered the

ruins of a grass roofed huts for which this area is well known

according to my guidebook. A bit further I encountered a very

amusing Cowboy Bar with its painted exterior and rustic interior.

What it had to do with Cowboys escaped me but I stopped for a

glass of wine anyway.

Cowboy Bar.

At 5:00 I reached Rabanal del Camino. The refugio here is operated

by an American, Nancy, and her Spanish husband Jose and is

absolutely superb. It is known as the Refugio Gaucelmo, and is

actually the old parish house which has been reconstructed.

Situated on a gentle hillside in the center of town, it is ancient

yet contemporary in its renovation. Nancy is an anthropologist who

is working on her doctoral thesis using el Camino as her subject.

We had an interesting conversation and her response to the idea

that pilgrims were "less than a full shilling" was that rather

than being deficient in some way, they were in transition. Nancy

told me that she had taken color photographs for the illustrations

in her book and that the publisher really wanted black and white

photographs. Due to seriously uninformed technical advice, Nancy

actually made the pilgrimage a second time just to reshoot the

photographs in black and white. Certainly the color photographs

could have been transformed into black and white, especially in

this age of the almost universal application of digital technology in

pre-press systems.

Refugio Gaucelmo.

After checking out the sleeping quarters which were quite filled

to the brim with pilgrims, I wandered down a path and investigated

a large utility building which had two large rooms, one with an

actual bed. Of course, being the claustrophobic that I am, I

immediately approached my hosts and suggested that I relocate to

the shed and free up a bunk in the main house. They agreed to

this, and after I set up my sleeping bag on the bed, a couple of

bikers rolled in and took up residence in the other room. I was

really quite delighted with my private room, and after washing my

socks and shirt, headed up to the restaurant to check it out. This

was a very busy place, in fact, the town itself was jam packed

with pilgrims. I walked down a hill to the lower plaza where there

was another bar and hostel, both of which were brimming with

pilgrims. At dinner time when I entered the restaurant there

wasn't a seat to be had and after a bit I decided to walk up to

the top of a hill overlooking the town and watch the sunset. This

was a magical experience. The sun set in a glory of color and the

field I watched from was unique with clumps of bushes and foot

paths. I thought of the distance I had come and the apprehension I

felt about tomorrow's walk to the highest point on el Camino which

is marked by the Iron Cross. When I returned to the restaurant it

was still overcrowded, and after talking for a while with Pauline,

a French woman, I went back to the refugio for a dinner of

sardines, yogurt, and cheese. I slept well in the shed and at 6:30

A.M. was up having coffee and rolls provided by my hosts. At 7:00

everyone was fussing around preparing to leave, myself included.

After saying goodbye to Nancy and Jose there is only the mountain

in front of me.

The shed at Refugio Gaucelmo.