Day 18

It seemed that the same clouds cooled us and the same cuckoo birds told us the time as we took our no longer secret creaks with us up on to a more defined meseta. The hills faded further into the background as the undulations now flattened out into vast plains hugging our forever winding pathway. Along this path we met a keen German walker who showed a lot of interest in Parkinsons as a friend of hers has it. She took a photo of my website and promised to share my blog with her friends back home. We walked and spoke for awhile to this engaging woman. We talked to an Irish woman along the way and then continued on, silence only being disturbed by the endearing ‘Buen Caminos’.  It has become more obvious to me now that the silence we experienced in Bayonne has never left us. The villages are mostly silent, the pilgrims remain silent even though this may be the quiet suffering of aching legs and blistered feet, and traffic only arises in the larger towns, even the Spanish seem more quiet than is their nature.  We passed through villages nestling in valleys, clinging to the hillside or urging you up to their hilltop home;  sometimes to rest on our own, at other times engaging with other walkers, to have coffee, rest our legs, fill up from the local fountain where water is warned against or promoted, take clothing off, put it on, or simply take a toilet break.  Eventually a long, flat tree -lined walk took us into Castrojeriz which lay at the base of one of these bare hills adorned by castle ruins, a reminder of what once was putting a temporary break to the path hugging wheat and other green crops.  We enjoyed a delightful interlude with a group of Australian women who were taking a break in the garden of our hostal, swapping unavoidable foot stories and had a post lunch chat with a Kiwi and her Welsh husband.  A walk through this siesta seeking town took us back to our now common beam-ceiling home, the often shy sun now peering in our little window. I have to say it … Adios