My Camino
Day 9 — In search for our El Dorado (Belorado)
We got up early that day, as we had a big day ahead — we had to find Barry, who definitely covered more kilometres the previous day. We had to get to Belorado! This was our goal, we had to push on. We skipped breakfast and set off before dawn. The dark shapes of houses and stone crosses protruded eerily in the cold fresh air. Soon the sun decided to poke its lazy face above the horizon competing for dominance against the waning light of the moon. As we left Azofra far behind everything began to take on a more familiar appearance in the daylight.
We walked through Ciruena. It is known as a ghost town, the long stretches of empty streets with unoccupied and sometimes boarded houses makes for a sad sight. In fact the whole area is empty, devoid of cars and people. The new estate was built around a golf course, so I can imagine that they were built as luxury homes. When the housing bubble burst no one could afford to buy them and the developers didn’t want to sell them for peanuts; and so for years the town has remained deserted. When we got to the original buildings of the village that predated the new town (hopefully inhabited) I saw a sign for an albergue located down a rundown lane. Poor Barry, he must have had a miserable night in this spooky place!
Unfortunately when we reached Santo Domingo we didn’t have time to look around this nice town. We looked around for a taxi instead. Yes, sadly we’d realised that if we wanted to reach Belorado and Barry that evening, we needed help. I know some people can trudge 40 kilometres in a day, but we were not those people. I can do 35 at a push, but Belorado was around 38!
We felt bad reverting to this devil’s invention, but soon our decision was fully justified! When after a few kilometres ride we got to Granon, we still had 10 kilometres to cover. We walked behind our old friends, “three Americans”. There were quite a few people around us. We were following a road, however a young Italian girl missed a huge yellow arrow and turned into a field up an elevated section— nice route, but unfortunately not the right one. The “Americans” were shouting and banging their walking polls trying to alert her, I was screaming, others as well, but she didn’t hear us and was evidently in her little world, possibly listening to something on her head phones. Then, Martin, my husband, the hero, gave me his backpack and jogged after her! She was walking quite fast and was already a good distance away, so it wasn’t just a little sprint. That was a really nice thing to have done, and everybody saw it as well! The group of Koreans were full of praise: “Such a kind man, kind man”. Typical, when I do good deeds I don’t usually have a whole crowd of witnesses! However the young Italian girl was rescued and safely back on track. Without Martin being there, I’ve no idea where she might have ended up — thank you, taxi!
When we reached the next village, we were about to enter a little caff when we bumped into Barry! He had heard that we were looking for him, he was also asking everybody if they had seen us. Finally we were able to exchange our phone numbers! No more rushing blindly after Barry!
In the caff we also met the “Americans”, who were very impressed with my kind Martin, they said that they would have not been able to run after the girl. They also called him kind and I was quite proud of him. Aaaaah!
Then we had our customary joking session about the Camino book written by Shirley MacLaine. I was just reading it, and they were trying to discourage me from it. “I know” — I agreed — “it does annoy me. She met so many angels on her way! And I haven’t yet” — I exclaimed. One of the “Americans” — the German one — said “You don’t need to, you have your own Angel” — he said looking at Martin. Aaaaah! Sweet! Do I really walk with my own angel? Put this in your pipe and smoke it — Shirley!
And that lead me to another Camino lesson — you see, before I had started this journey I was expecting some miracle, some wonder which would happen independently somewhere along the way. And now I was thinking that maybe these miracles I was expecting weren’t somewhere out there, maybe they were waiting to be unlocked inside of us. Maybe they present themselves with each good thing we do to one another. There is so much kindness and good will on the Camino. There is so much love. Isn’t that a small wonder in itself? Each time we do something kind for another a little spiritual miracle happens, we open a gate to another person’s soul.
We spent a lovely evening in Belorado with Barry and the friend he walked the previous day with — Simona, from Slovenia. I had unnecessarily worried about him, he had a fantastic night in Ciruena, in a great and unusual albergue with stained glass windows and a very eccentric owner. That night he was staying in a private pension, we, on the other hand, despite our promises that we would be more picky about our accommodation, checked-in in an overcrowded municipal albergue. But that’s another story!
