qui m'encourage, qui m'aime comme si j'étais une des ses enfants. Ma tante a pris la peine de m'envoyer, par la poste, la plus belle carte me souhaitant un "Buen Camino". J'ai cette carte avec moi, dans mon sac à dos, sur mon dos, depuis Jour 1 du Camino. Je te porte dans mon coeur ma tante, et tes paroles le plus près possible de mon corps possible.
We left our room in the Monastery late, (8:00 am) in a light drizzle. We hadn't gone very far, and we were still in the old, narrow streets of Leon, when I spotted an older gentleman hunched over, with a paint brush in one hand, and a bucket of yellow paint in the other.
Here is Baudi's story. He is one of many thousands of volunteers who make The Camino work. I found out his story, because as we passed by, I stopped to tell him how much I appreciated what he was doing, which was repainting those blessed yellow "flechas" we see everywhere, that tell we pilgrims that we are on the right path.
Well, he dropped his bucket right there and proceeded to tell me all about the Association of these volunteers in Leon, of which he is very proud to be a part. He is responsible three times a year, for repainting the arrows in the city of Leon. Once a year, he travels 20 km east of Leon to repaint all the arrows, and 30 km west of Leon as well.
By now he has taken a shine to me, and since he can't keep painting, (a streetsweeper machine is coming behind and wiping away all his work) he takes a picture of me pretending to paint the flecha, and decides to lead us through the streets of Leon, via a shortcut, to get back on the Camino out of town.
What a character! He knows a lot about Canada because he loves history and geography, so he starts to recite all the provinces and their capitals, though he admitted he never could pronounce Saskatchewan!
He walks at a fast clip, and is just thoroughly entertaining and charming. He takes pictures of us, gives us his email address typed on a small paper, tell us we are "muy agradables", tells me he would do the Camino with me anyday; kisses us and sends us on our way. We tell him how grateful we are for his help and how wonderfully he represents his beautiful city!
By the way, Nancy and I get told that all the time, that we are "muy agradables", very nice. Well, we ARE Canadian!
The sun comes out later in the morning, promising another good day of hiking. We chat for a few moments with a man carrying a homemade cross, that almost looks like a ship, because it is adorned with sails, with beautiful writing and drawings. He is carrying the cross (accompanied by his dog), to Santiago. He hopes to get there by December. His is making some kind of political statement (elections are upcoming in Spain this fall), but his dialect is very difficult for me to understand more than that.
We arrive at Villar de Mazarife, by mid afternoon. Nancy and I have hiked the whole day together, and it has been wonderful. I am so proud of her, because I know she pushed through a lot of foot pain to get this day in.
Our last hour seemed to take forever, from Chozas de Abajo
to Villar de Mazarife, and I was worried. We met two Guardia Civil cars on this isolated path in the middle of nowhere, and then a chopper appeared and hovered in our general walking area for a long time. At one point we could see the writing on the chopper, and it said Guardia Civil. They were obviously looking for someone. Then a French woman tells us she has heard that someone has gone missing. We think right away that some Peregrino has been abducted again, as this is the area where the Asian American pilgrim disappeared in April.
I ask as soon as we arrive at Tio Pepe, our albergue, and they tell me a local, elderly woman with dementia, from the pueblo, is who they are looking for. Bad enough, but I am so thankful peregrinos are safe.
Lucy and Baerbel visited us from their Albergue; Nancy has too much sangria; our neighbour across the hall turns out to be the Czech (George) whom we helped get a room in Leon the previous night. Voilà, another interwoven thread on The Camino.
Bonne nuit chère ma tante; vaya con Dios. Gros bisous! Ta nièce.
Sending love and gratitude from Villar de Mazarife, Spain.
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