Day 32

We drifted down the street between buildings that seemed to be closing in on us, sharing stories lost in human memory but remembered by the stored genetic memory of old stone walls and bent wooden balconies. Trees grew in some houses seen taking nervous peeks through rooves and reaching out through broken walls looking sinister as their stunted branches searched for light. I think they wished us a good walk as the wind gave us a final shove into the cold dawn where birds sang to us as we left yet another village on our walk for Parkinsons Fields of Lavender with their purple stems and pink hats swept up and over our path making the most of the land not yet overtaken by the yellow straw of the witches broom. We pushed through isolated oases of rainforest, jumped narrow streams, and negotiated narrow cliff paths in the constant shade of mountains to our east.

The descent was difficult as we decided which rock was stable enough to take our weight, as a lad from Prague danced past us singing as he went, the pup he had just saved from a wet death clinging to his chest possibly fearing another way to the life beyond. We had coffee with an American Vietnam Veteran and talked about the meaning of life, long relationships and time out on the Camino Down into the  undulating valley of Ponferrada where we met up with those  four Americans who have been following us. I challenged them today and asked them why? They did not have a satisfactory answer so we just accepted their suspicious company. Less suspicious are our accidental rendezvous with our Dutch women friends who we may see again in Santiago, I hope so.

Sunset     Blown by the wind   Indoor plant                                   Campo

Purple Haze