Day 26 or Tray o Parts and Tight Chaps

Notes on Day 26, March 21, Mazarife to Astorga, 32km

This morning in the restaurant the waitress/barkeep/cook/maitre-d/hospitalero asked me what I wanted for breakfast. ¨Tostado?¨ I asked hoping for some toast. ¨No tostado,¨ she said, only bread. So I ordered bread, and she toasted it for me anyway. And in Spain they don´t put your toast in a toaster, they brush it with olive oil and toast it in a cast iron pan. She brought it to me and smiled when she saw me looking so happy. Little kindnesses.

This morning I stopped in a small town for some bread. I waited in line outside the panaderia because the shop was only big enough to fit one normal person or two Kiera Knightly´s at a time. A little four foot tall old lady asked me if I was German (I get mistaken for a German by everyone except Germans). When I told her no, I was from Estados Unitos, she cried, ¨Madre Mia!¨and crossed herself as she looked up to the sky. Then she laughed and smiled and patted me on the shoulder and rambled in Spanish at me. I have no idea what that was about, but I hope it had to do with the fact that I came so far to do the Camino rather than Estados Unitos is a pit of hellfire and should burn for eternity.



In Hospital de Obriego there is a 13th C bridge that is one of the oldest and longest in Spain. I have no idea why it is so long because the width of the river is only about 1/6 the span of the bridge. But anyway, legend has it that in the 1400´s a knight, who was spurned by a lady and felt his manhood threatened, swore to defend the bridge against anyone who dared cross in order to regain his honor and dignity. Knights from all over Europe came for the challenge and he successfully fended them off for a month and hence, regained his dignity. Is that what I have to do to get my honor and dignity back after my humiliating divorce? Defend a bridge? Shit, I´m screwed.



And I had the biggest let down of a lunch today. I was looking forward to my Calamares Romana and was served what I am sure is frozen deep fried squid reheated in the microwave. And I have now tried flan in a couple of places and I have to confess, I just don´t get it. I mean c´mon people, we can do better can´t we?

In another little town I met up with Liam and Uwe again, who are my new heroes for their ability to just sit and not give a rat´s ass when they get anywhere. Everytime something cool happens or someone says something good, Liam whips out his little notebook and says, ¨It´s all goin´in the book, man, it´s all goin' in the book.¨ I just hope if I make it in the book, he makes my ass look smaller than it is and describes me as an American vixen in cargo pants.

Some new blisters on my heels can no longer be ignored. I have discovered this stuff called Compeed. It is like a second skin and all day long I couldn´t wait to just get to a farmacia and buy some of the trajically expensive bandaids of the gods and put them on my heels. But the 11€ bits of relief FELL OUT OF MY POCKET on the way to the albergue. So after my shower, when I was sitting down to enjoy applying my glorious Compeed to my bubbling heels, it was gone. Gone! I had to go back and buy more dammit, so I just spent about $40 on bandaids I will wear for two days.

I did not get to Astorga until around 7:30 owing to the fact that the hike was 32km from Mazarife. Holy crap I am completely done in.



The albergue was in a converted 18th century house with two foot thick walls, timber beamed cieling, and floor to ceiling windows with interior and exterior shutters. I was dying to know how this former upper crust home would have looked like when the original owners lived here. Now the ancient stone room I slept in sported 10 bunk beds and 10 smelly peregrinos.



That night, Uwe, Liam and I met up with three other pilgrims for dinner. Ana (this time a German) had heard about a restaurant that serves this traditional meal of a giant tray of random animal carcass parts, including pig feet. So we were all looking forward to our little culinary experiment in this restaurant far two nice for our stanky asses. And in the end, they weren´t serving Tray o´ Parts that night and so the only thing we could all afford was the fish soup, which was good, had lots of spinach and chick peas, but no fish. I think they waved a fish in the general vicinity of the soup or something.

During a discussion of our rain gear, Liam outed (ha ha) Uwe as having brought rain chaps instead of rain pants. Leave it to a gay man to bring rain chaps. Anyway, Uwe complained that he didn´t like them because they were too tight. ¨Really?¨ says Liam, ¨you don´t like tight chaps?¨