Day 22: Terradillos de Los Templarios

I have a reservation in Santiago on the 19th. As I might have mentioned, I had to decide whether to move it to the 21st (or later) or give up visiting Finisterre and Muxia for the sake of walking every inch of the Camino with my own feet.

I decided 90% by my own feet was okay. Actually it will be more than that. Not sure how much.

Today I walked 18 miles from Carrion de Los Condes to Terradillos de Los Templarios. It wasn’t that hard, just long. It took me till after 4:00, when I started at 7. 11 miles of it was with no villages, so I had only the food and water I could carry.

Actually an enterprising local has set up an oasis halfway. I was just sitting, using his chair, when he came and asked, “What do you want?” in a voice that clearly established I was to pay rent for that chair.

So I said, “Un Coca-Cola Zero, por favor.” He said, “Si,” and brought me a Diet Pepsi. I said, “This is Pepsi. I do not drink Pepsi.” He said, “I do not sell Coke,” and then proceeded to tell me how unhealthy Coke is and how if you left a piece of meat in Coke overnight it would dissolve. And I’m thinking, “The exact same thing would happen with a Pepsi.”

But I don’t say it. Instead I tell him the story of the dark icy night when a Pepsi truck nearly ran me off the road. We compromise on a Fanta.

There’s no toilet so I have to stop behind some bushes a bit further down the road. I have a book that says etiquette is you go 100 yards from the trail. That would have put me in the middle of an empty wheat field.

I’m not dropping my drawers in front of God and everybody, my white butt gleaming like one of the plastic-wrapped hay bales they have here. I crouched in the ditch, then had to get heads of wheat out of my underwear. (There was wheat in the field next to the road.) But a pilgrim’s gotta do what a pilgrim’s gotta do.

Speaking of God and everybody, I learned an alternative phrase to “bun-f$&@in’ Egypt.” In Spain you say, “Where Jesus wore shoes.” Today I was out where Jesus wore shoes.

Bjorn and Dalilah were in the albergue when I got there, both a little worried about me because I took so long. We have a room for four and OUR OWN BATHROOM!Life is good. Life is very, very good.

My phone died early so not a lot of pictures today.These are leaving Carrión de Los Condes.This on the 11 mile section.This is how we all feel when arriving at an oasis.