Guardian angels

When I woke up this morning, I felt like a pile of cow shit.  Not horse shit or sheep shit, but a big, fat, cowpie.  The Spanish guys in the bunk next to us were so jovial and energetic that I wanted to punch them in the face.  If they hadn't been so damn gorgeous, I might have.  They were starting the Camino today by bicycle, and between trying to flirt with us and guzzling protein shakes were chattering excitedly about the ride.  Idiots.

It was a brisk 50 degrees or so and pouring rain for the first few hours of our walk and I was trying desperately to think positively.  "Well, at least we're getting the shitty weather out of the way the first few days," I told Emily.  "It seriously can only get better from here!"  She halfheartedly agreed with me and by the time the rain stopped and the sun peeked through the clouds we found ourselves in a cute little town where we bought bread, cheese, and chorizo for five euros.  Score!  Our pace quickened and before we knew it we were in a town about halfway to Zubiri, our destination for the day.  

A kilometer or so later, we ran into a man who was panting heavily and having a difficult time making it up some of the hills.  A group of Spanish women took his pack (they were having their bags transported for them and delivered to their next albergue) so he could walk easier and I climbed the hill at his pace to make sure he made it to the top.

There wasn't a top.  There was kilometer after kilometer of hilly landscape to traverse, and Emily and I fell into his pace, trailing him to make sure he was alright.  Since his pack was gone, he had no water; this only strengthened our resolve to stick with him and we spent the rest of the afternoon going at the pace of our 73-year-old friend Nick.  He was a retired urologist from California with a wife and three grown children.  We didn't get much more than that out of him because he was having a hard time speaking as he walked.  Emily and I mostly just hung back and goofed around taking photos and singing weird songs, and I found myself increasingly grateful for our pace because my blisters were becoming so uncomfortable I could hardly walk.  Elona, a gal from Denmark we had been on pace with all day, told us that Nick was lucky to have two guardian angels adopt him.

Maybe it was the other way around.  

I really do think that everything happens for a reason, so when we were given sleeping space on a cement gym floor because every bed in town was occupied, we tried to stay positive.  We had arrived about four hours later than expected and it would have been easy to blame our predicament on being too nice; instead, we looked at it as a valid reason to drink a lot of wine.  We found a bottle for less than three euros and enjoyed a hearty dinner of baguette, chorizo, and cheese from the comfort of the cement floor with our friend Nikko, who taught us to slice off the top half of a plastic water bottle to use as a cup for wine.  I think all remaining dignity was lost when we starting hanging our underwear on a line next to perfect strangers' underwear, so this actually seemed pretty classy.

After an evening filled with music, laughter, and drinking cheap red wine from an old powerade bottle, I think we're ready to attempt to sleep on the cement floor.  God, this is going to suck.

K

Zubiri, Spain

Albergue: This could be a hostel, a municipal albergue with hundreds of beds, a bed and breakfast, etc.