Solo

Anne and I parted ways yesterday---she went off to get a bus to Burgos and I took off from Villafranka in the dark---for the first hour to St Juan--12 Kms away. It was a delightful walk through thick forest for about 3 hours. After an hour I caught up with Alessandro from Florence in Italy (27) and we had a great yarn for a couple of hours on the meaning of life and the Camino. He had been laid up for 3 days with a crook knee until a Norwegian woman asked him if she could do a healing on it. He agreed but said he didn,t believe in such things but within an hour his knee was 100% again and he was able to continue his walk. He said the 3 day lay up was the best thing that could have happened to him and he was now very much looking forward to the rest of his journey. I got to Atapuerca about 11.30am having done 18kms in 5 hours but still feeling full of energy so kept on going. A very rocky uphill climb slowed me down and a difficult descent had me looking for somewhere to stay and about 3 kms further on I dragged my feet into a little village Cardenuela and hoped they had a bed for me. I ended up the only person in a 4 bed room with my own bathroom. On a crowded Camino this is like gold---like being the only one in a cinema or the only one on a beautiful beach---you know life is smiling on you when this happens. All this for 8E---about $12. For another 8E, they served up a lovely 3 course meal with wine. Got going again at 7 AM this morning and after an hours walking caught up with Alessandro again---what a delight---so we walked into Burgos together. He was hungry so I talked to him about the concept of manifesting---and how Jo and I had manifested a bar in the middle of nowhere one day. Our prospects seemed just as bleak in the middle of an industrial area but within 15 minutes a bar had showed up and Alessandro was marvelling at his new-found powers---there will be no stopping him now. A couple of locals with no English helped me find the hotel where Anne was staying and had a wonderful bath---definately in the top 5 of all time--- before we went out and had a late brunch. All is well with the world at the moment.