Day 28 or Christmas on Easter

Notes on Day 28, March 23, Rabanal to Acebo

Before I had left Astorga I had bought some walking poles in a sporting goods store. I knew I still had two mountain ranges to get across and the chances of snow were good. I suppose that I could have paid 8€ for one of those walking sticks that are often sold at the albergues, but no. I had to pay 40€ for the super hitech, lightweight titanium poles with the professional-looking but inexplicable doo dads that you put on the bottom.



It took me a little while to get used to walking with them. Like when I raised my hands yesterday in triumph at finally seeing the sign for my destination, Rabanal, and promptly tripped on a pole and almost did a face plant in the mud. Or like when I stabbed my shoe with the pointy end and narrowly avoided impaling my great toe.



But damn I am glad I bought them. They really do help with balance and you can transfer some weight from your feet to your arms as you push off. And they have saved my ass a few times too, like when I slid on ice and went into the splits and almost tore myself a second vagina. That would´ve been an awkward visit to the gynecologist for sure.



After watching snow collect on my window last night, I was nervous as I stepped outside this morning, but the snow was not so deep, only enough to make it beautiful, not dangerous. As I climbed, the landscape reminded me of a dessert but with snow. The low shrubs looked like upturned broom brushes, reminiscent of cacti, and the brown earth mingled with the white of the snow.



What a gift of a day. The higher I climbed, the deeper the snow. It covered everything like Christmas. Clouds hovered low and shrouded the tops of the highest peaks. I think Mount Everest is something like 30,000 feet high. Today I climbed a mountain that is almost 5000 feet high. I am one sixth of the way to the top of Mount Everest. And it is so cold at this elevation that I will never, ever want to go to Everest until global warming turns it into the next Acapulco.



And thank God for people who are crazy enough to settle a mountain village, live in it in winter, and run the cheeriest little bar I´ve been in. I was in dire need of heat and sustenance, and a rest. So I sat my frozen pork chop of a butt on a stool in the bar in Foncebadon and ordered the most delicious cup of tea. But a few minutes later I saw some Spanish woman order hot chocolate with cognac in it. I frowned at my tea, looked at the bar keep, and said ¨me tambien!¨ He smiled and winked and gave me my spiked chocolate with a pat on the shoulder. I knew I was going to need something a little more fuerte to brace against the winter cold.

And I ate a beautiful bocadillo of my own invention. It consisted of lomo (the pork Ana had turned me on to) and some queso de Gallego (the local cheese) that I picked out all by myself in a local butcher shop full of local people ordering their daily ration of meats and cheeses. I make a damn good Spanish bocadillo I tell you. I should open a cafe and serve Bocadillo de Kristin's all day long.

The last night in Astorga, Ana and Liam were talking about how it is customary to lay something down at the Cruz de Ferro, the high point of the entire Camino. Most people lay stones at the foot of the cross that they have carried all the way from the start of their Camino. It is a symbol of unburdening yourself of something. I didn´t know about this and I hadn´t been carrying a stone to lay down. Hell I´ve sent extra weight to Santiago twice, I wasn´t about to go picking up rocks to carry. And it was too late to go back to the states and get my ex and carry his ass 550km no matter how much I need to unburden myself of him. So I thought, what can I lay down here?



And then it came to me, I can lay down my obsessing, my ruminating, my arguing with myself. At least for the rest of the trip, anyway. So at the cruz de Ferro, with its mini mountain of rocks of people´s burdens, I laid down my burden of an overactive mind, and promised that if I started ruminating again, I would not get mad at myself.



Tonight after I ate a dinner of Bierzo stew (Bierzo being the valley I am now entering), I saw Roberto and Elianie eating a few tables away. I joined them and we talked travel and all the places they have been, and I pulled out my map of Spain and Roberto gave me the most incredible itinerary for a three week car trip all around the coast of Portugal and Spain. It is going to be hard not to hang on here and do that, but this is the kind of trip you want to do in a convertible with friends, you know. Anyone interested?